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THE AMERICAN NATION 

A History in 27 Volumes 

The work of author-scholars from twenty universi- 
ties. Edited by Albert Buslmell Hart, Ph.D., LL.D., 
Professor of Government in Harvard Univensity, with 
the co-operation of four .state liistorical .societies. 
Written from original sourci ^ by the leading American 
lii.slorians. Illustrated with 1S() .special maps and with 
frontispieces. The standard American history — the 
standard for all time. This great, work has the 
modernity, distinction, and genuine comprehensive- 
ness that only a. distinguished body of author- 
scholars trained in the new science of history can give. 

The Lii)R.\Ry Edition. Crown-octavo size, green 
polished buckram, stamped in gold, with dark-red 
leather labels, in every way fine pieces of book- 
making. Any volume sold separately, $2.00 net. 
Volumes sold in group sets, $1.80 net per volume. 

Full Descriptive Circulars of This and 
Other Editions Sent upon Application 

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 
FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



FROM THE AMERICAN NATION : A HISTORY 
EDITED BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, LL.D. 




HARPER &- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

MCMX ill 






COPVmoHT. 1904. .905. .90 6. ,907. .9 .3. BY HARPER 61 BROTHERS 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AI.IERICA 

PUBLISHED OCTOBER. .9.3 



^' 



€)C1,A357473 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE (16^-1652) .... 1 
By Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL.D., President of 
William and Mary College. Author of England in 
America. 

IL SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF VIR- 
GINIA il6:U-1653) 11 

By Lyon Gardiner Tyler. 

III. SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE COLONIES 

{1652-1689) 29 

By Charles McLean Andrews, Ph.D., Farnam 
Professor of American History in Yale University. 
Author of Colonial Self-Government. 

IV. PROVINCIAL CULTURE {1690-17^0) 55 

By EvARTs B. Greene, Ph.D., Professor of History, 
University of Illinois. Author of Provincial America. 

V. THE PEOPLE OF NEW FRANCE {1750) 79 

By Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D., Superintendent 
^of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Author 
of France in America. 

VI. AN AMERICAN PEOPLE {1763) 98 

By George Elliot Howard, Ph.D., Professor of 
Political Science and Sociology, University of Ne- 
braska. Author of Preliminaries of the Revolution. 

VII. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION {1763-1775) ... 117 

By Claude Halstead Van Tyne, Ph.D., Professor 
of History, University of Michigan. Author of The 
American Revolution. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

VIII. THE PROBLEM OF IMPERIAL ORGANIZATION 

{,177 0-17 S7) 139 

By Andrew Cvnnincuam McL.\uguun, A.M., 
Professor of .\moricjin History in the University of 
Chicago. Author of The Coiifcdtration and the 

Const Hut ion. 

IX. THE STATE OF SOCIETY U7S9-1S(X)) 159 

By John Spencer B.\ssett, Ph.D., Professor of 
Americiui History, Smith College. Author of 
The Federalist Syntem. 

X. RESl^LTS OF WAR {mn) 171 

By Kknokic Chakles Baucock, Ph.D., Spe<.ialist 
in Higher Education. U. S. Bureau of Education. 
Author of The Ri^te of American yationality. 

XI. NEW ENC,U\ND {lS20-lSiiO) 189 

By Fkeoekuk Jackson IYknek, LL.D.. Prvifessor 
of American History in Harvard University. 
Author of The Rise of the yew West. 

Xn. THE MIDDLE REGION (ISL'O-ISJO) ^07 

By Fhedekick Jackson Tt^rneu. 

*^III. THE SOUTH {1S20-1SS0) 4n 

By Fredeirick Jackson Turner. 

XIV. COLONIZATION OF THE WEST {1S20-1SS0) . . iU! 

By Frederick Jackson Turneh. 

XV. SOCIAL .VND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF 

THE WEST t^lSJO-lSSO) Ct^G 

By Frederick Jackson Tfrxer. 

XVI. WESTERN COMMERCE AND IDEALS {1S,\}-1S30) i>75 

By Frederick Jacblson Turner. 

XVII. THE FAR WEST (1820-1830) iW 

By I'^EDFJUCK J.VCKSON Tt'RNER. 

*<XVIII. AMERICAN SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS {ISSO- 

1S60) / 3U? 

By Albert BrsifkELL Hart. LL.D.. Professor of 
Government. Harvard University. Author of Slaty 
ery and AMitipn. 



CONTENTS 



PAQH 



.'JKi 



369 



'J^X. PLANTATION LIl-'J^: {18J0-1SG0) 

Hy Ai,itKR'i' IJusuNiOLi, Haht. 
XX. SOCIAL FERMKNT IN THE NORTH {1850-im)) 

By TiiKouoKK Clauk Smith, Pli.D., Professor of 
American History, Williams College. Author of 
Parties and Slavery. 
>XXL SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM {1S50-1SW) . . . 
By TiiEODOKi'; Clakk Smith. 

XXII. SPIRIT OF THE NORTH {ISC4-1SG5) .^88 

By .Iamks Kiondau. Hosmiou, LL.D. Author of 
The Appeal to Armti an<l Outcome of the Civil War. 

*iCXIII. SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH (1S64-1865) 408 

By Jamks Kendall Hosmek. 

XXIV. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATE (1805-180!)) . . 

By William A. Dunninu, LL.D., Professor of 
History, Columbia University. Author of Re- 
con.itriirtion. Political and Economic. 

XXV. THE NEW SPIRIT OF '7G (1870-1877) .... 

By Edwin Erle Spauks, I'h.D., President of 
Pennsylvania State College. Author of National 
Development. 

XXVI. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (1880-1807) . . 

By Davih R. Dewey, Ph.D., Professor of Eco- 
nomies and Statistics, Massachusetts Instiltiti? 
of Technology. Author of National Problems. 

XXVII. THE ART OF LIVING (1750-1907) 479 

By Albert Buhhnell Hart. Author of Na- 
tional Ideals Historically Traced. 

XXVIII. INTELLECTUAL LIFE (1689-1907) 496 

By Albert Busiinell Hart. 



429 



444 



461 



i 



I 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

THIS book affords consecutive views of social con- 
ditions, with some account of economic forces, 
in the life of the American people from the days of 
the first colonies. These accounts of life, occupa- 
tions, literature, religious beliefs, and other phases 
have been selected from the works of the distin- 
guished scholars who are the authors of the twenty- 
seven volumes which form the pre-eminent history 
of our country entitled The American Nation. 

In his general introduction to that history the 
editor, Prof. A. B. Hart, writes that "it must 
include the social life of the people, their rcHgion, 
their literature, and their schools. It must include 
their economic life, occupations, labor systems, and 
organizations of capital." While this book has 
been prepared with emphasis upon social history, 
yet social and economic phases are inevitably inter- 
woven, and both are presented with some references 
to other conditions where this had seemed necessary. 
The purpose has been to indicate essentials, and 
therefore these successive views of social and eco- 
nomic phases afford a practically consecutive and 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

succinct epitome of phases of American life which 
are apt to be obscured by other aspects in general 
histories. The view which is given by the scholars 
who have written The American Nation will, it is 
believed, supply interpretations of peculiar interest to 
general readers and will prove of distinctive value 
in certain fields of college work in American history. 
It should be added that these chapters have been 
selected chronologically by the publishers, with full 
references to the authors and the volumes repre- 
sented. 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 
FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 
FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

CHAPTER I 

EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE 
(1624-1652) 

DURING the civil war in England the sympa- 
thies of Massachusetts, of course, were with 
Parliament. New England ministers were invited 
to attend the Westminster assembly of divines held 
in September, 1642, and several of them returned to 
England. The most prominent was Rev. Hugh 
Peter, who was instrumental in procuring the de- 
capitation of Charles I., and paid for the offence, 
on the restoration of Charles II., with his own life. 
In 1643 Parliament passed an act' freeing all com- 
modities carried between England and New England 
from the payment of "any custom, subsidy, taxa- 
tion, imposition, or other duty." 

The transfer of the supreme authority to the Par- 
liament, though hailed with enthusiasm in New 
England, increased, if anything, her confidence. In 
the summer of 1644 a ship bearing a commission 
from the Parliament attacked and captured in the 
harbor of Boston another ship friendly to the king ; 
Massachusetts showed her displeasure by addressing 

* N. H. Hist. Soc, Collections, I., 323-326. 



2 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1646 

a strong protest to Parliament. Not long after 
another vessel of Parliament attacked a ship be- 
longing to persons from Dartmouth in sympathy 
with the king. This time Winthrop turned the 
guns of the battery upon the parliamentary captain 
and made him pay a barrel of powder for his inso- 
lence.^ 

The same summary action was adopted in regard 
to the growing demand for a freer suffrage. In May, 
1646, an able and respectful petition was presented 
to the general court for the removal of the civil 
disabihties of all members of the churches of Eng- 
land and Scotland, signed by William Vassall, Samuel 
Maverick, Dr. Robert Child, and four other promi- 
nent Presbyterians. The petition was pronoimced 
seditious and scandalous, and the petitioners were 
roundly fined. When Child set out for England 
with his grievances, he was arrested and his baggage 
searched. Then, to the horror of the rulers of Mas- 
sachusetts, there was discovered a petition address- 
ed to Parliament, suggesting that Presbyterianism 
should be estabhshed in New England and that a 
general governor should be sent over. The signers, 
brought before the court, were fined more heavily 
than before and imprisoned for six months. At 
length Vassall and his friends contrived to reach 
England, expecting to receive the aid of the Pres- 
byterian party in Parliament; but misfortune over- 
took them there as in Massachusetts, for the In- 

* Winthrop, New England, II., 222-224, 228, 238-240. 



1646] NEW ENGLAND LIFE 3 

dependents were now in control and no help could 
be obtained from them.^ 

The agitation in England in favor of Presbyterian- 
ism, and the petition of Vassall and his friends in Mas- 
sachusetts, induced the general court in May, 1646, 
to invite the clergy to meet at Cambridge, "there 
to discuss, dispute, and clear up, by the word of 
God, such questions of church government and dis- 
cipline as they should think needful and meet," 
until "one form of government and discipline" 
should be determined upon. The "synod" met 
September i, 1646, and after remaining in session 
fourteen days they adjourned. In August, 1648, 
after the downfall of Presbyterianism in England, 
another meeting was held, and a plan of church 
government was agreed upon, by which order and 
unity were introduced among members theoretically 
independent.^ 

By a unanimous vote the synod adopted " a plat- 
form ' ' approving the confession of faith of the West- 
minster divines, except as to those parts which fa- 
vored the Presbyterian discipline. The bond of 
union was found in the right of excluding an offend- 
ing church from fellowship and of calling in the civil 
power for the suppression of idolatry, blasphemy, 
heresy, etc. The platform recognized the preroga- 
tive of occasional synods to give advice and admoni- 

' New England's Jonas Cast Up at London (Force, Tracts, 
IV., No. iii.); Winthrop, New England, II., 319, 340, 358, 391. 
* Winthrop, New England, II., 329, 330, 402. 



4 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

tion to churches in their collective capacity, but 
general officers and permanent assemblies, like those 
of the Presbyterian and Anglican churches, armed 
with coercive power to act upon individuals, were 
disclaimed.* 

Nevertheless, by the organization thus effected, 
the benumbing influence of the Calvinistic faith 
upon the intellectual life of New England was fully 
established, and the deaths of John Winthrop and 
John Cotton, which happened not long after, were 
the forerunners of what Charles Francis Adams 
styles the " glacial period of Massachusetts." ^ Both 
Winthrop and Cotton were believers in aristocracy 
in state and church, but the bigotry of Winthrop 
was relieved by his splendid business capacity and 
that of Cotton by his comparative gentleness and 
tenderness of heart. 

"Their places were taken by two as arrant fanatics 
as ever breathed"^ — John Endicott, who was gov- 
ernor for thirteen out of fifteen years following Win- 
throp's death, and John Norton, an able and up- 
right but narrow and intolerant clergyman. The 
persecuting spirit which had never been absent in 
Massachusetts reached, under these leaders, its 
climax in the wholesale hanging of Quakers and 
witches. 

In the year of Cotton's death (1652), which was 

' Mather, Magnalia, book V. 

* Adams, Massachusetts, its Historians and its History, 59. 

' Fiske, Beginnings of New England, 179. 



1652] NEW ENGLAND LIFE 5 

the year that Virginia surrendered to the Parlia- 
mentary commissioners and the authority of the 
EngHsh Parliament was recognized throughout Eng- 
lish America, the population of New England could 
not have been far short of fifty thousand. For the 
settlements along the sea the usual mode of com- 
munication was by water, but there was a road along 
the whole coast of Massachusetts. In the interior 
of the colony, as Johnson boasted, "the wild and 
uncouth woods were filled with frequented ways, 
and the large rivers were overlaid with bridges, 
passable both for horse and foot." * 

All the conditions of New England tended to 
compress population into small areas and to force 
the energies of the people into trade. Ship-building 
was an early industry, and New England ships vied 
with the ships of Holland and England in visiting 
distant countries for commerce.^ Manufacturing 
found early encouragement, and in 1639 a number of 
clothiers from Yorkshire set up a fulling-mill at 
Rowley.^ A glass factory was established at 
Salem in 1641,* and iron works at Lynn in 1643,^ 
under the management of Joseph Jenks. The keen- 
ness of the New-Englander in bargains and business 
became famous. 

In Massachusetts the town was the unit of repre- 

' Johnson, Wonder Working Providence, book III., chap. i. 
' Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New England, I., 143. 
' Palfrey, New England, II., 53. 

* Mass. Col. Records, I., 344. 

• Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New England, I., 174. 

2 



6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

sentation and taxation, and in local matters it gov- 
erned itself. The first town government appears to 
have been that of Dorchester, where the inhabitants 
agreed, October 8, 1633, to hold a weekly meeting 
"to settle and sett down such orders as may tend 
to the general good." * Not long after a similar 
meeting was held in Watertown, and the system 
speedily spread to the other towns. The plan of 
appointing a body of " townsmen," or selectmen, to 
sit between meetings of the towns began in Febru- 
ary, 1635, in Charlestown.^ 

The town-meeting had a great variety of business. 
It elected the town officers and the deputies to the 
general court and made ordinances regarding the 
common fields and pastures, the management of 
the village herds, roadways, boundary-lines, fences, 
and many other things. Qualified to share in the 
deliberations were all freemen and "admitted in- 
habitants of honest and good conversation ' ' rated at 
;^2o (equivalent to about $500 to-day).^ 

In the prevalence of the town system popular 
education was rendered possible, and a great epoch 
in the history of social progress was reached when 
Massachusetts recognized the support of education 
as a proper function of government. Boston had a 
school with some sort of public encouragement in 
1635,* and in 1642, before schools were required by 

* Clapp, Dorchester, 32. ^ Frothingham, Charlestown, 51. 
' Howard, Local Constitutional History, I., 66. 

* Palfrey, New England, II., 47. 



1652] NEW ENGLAND LIFE 7 

law, it was enjoined upon the selectmen to "take 
account from time to time of parents and masters 
of the ability of the children to read and understand 
the principles of religion and the capital lawes of the 
country." ^ In November, 1647, a general educa- 
tional law required every town having fifty house- 
holders or more to appoint some one to teach chil- 
dren how to read and write, and every town having 
one hundred householders or more to establish a 
"grammar (Latin) school" to instruct youth "so 
far as may be fitted for the university." ^ 

In 1636 the Massachusetts assembly agreed to 
give ;^4oo towards "a schoole or Colledge," ^ to 
be built at Newtown (Cambridge). In 1638 John 
Harvard died within a year after his arrival, and left 
his library and "one-half his estate, it being in all 
about ;^7oo, for the erecting of the College." In 
recognition of this kindly act the general court 
fitly gave his name to the institution,* the first 
founded in the United States. 

In 1650 Connecticut copied the Massachusetts 
law of 1647, ^''^^ ^ clause declared that the gram- 
mar - schools were to prepare boys for college. 
The results, however, in practice did not come up 
to the excellence of the laws, and while in some 
towns in both Massachusetts and Connecticut a 
public rate was levied for education, more generally 
the parents had to pay the teachers, and they were 

* Mass. Col. Records, II., 9. 

' Ibid., 203. ' Ibid., I., 183. * Ibid., 253. 



8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

hard to secure. When obtained they taught but 
two or three months during the year/ Bad spelHng 
and wretched writing were features of the age from 
which New England was not exempt. Real learning 
was confined, after all, to the ministers and the richer 
classes in the New England colonies, pretty much as 
in the mother-country. In Plymouth and Rhode 
Island, where the hard conditions of life rendered 
any legal system of education impracticable, illiter- 
acy was frequent. The class of ignorant people 
most often met with in New England were fisher- 
men and the small farmers of the inland townships. 
Scarcity of money was felt in New England as in 
Virginia, and resort was had to the use of wampum 
as a substitute,^ and com, cattle, and other com- 
modities were made legal tenders in payment of 
debts.^ In 1652 a mint was established at Boston, 
and a law was passed providing for the coinage 
of all bullion, plate, and Spanish coin into "twelve- 
penny, sixpenny, and threepenny pieces." The 
master of the mint was John Hull, and the shillings 
coined by him were called "Pine-Tree Shillings," 
because they bore on one side the legend "Massa- 
chusetts" encircling a tree.* 



* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New England, I., 282, II., 
861. 

' Weeden, Indian Money as a Factor in New England 
Colonization (Johns Hopkins University Studies, II., Nos. viii., 
ix.). 

' Mass. Col. Records, I., no; Conn. Col. Records, I., 8. 

* Mass. Col. Records, IV., pt. i., 84, 118. 



1652] NEW ENGLAND LIFE 9 

Marriage was a mere civil contract, and the burials 
took place without funeral service or sermon. Stem 
laws were made against card - playing, long hair, 
drinking healths, and wearing certain articles, such 
as gold and silver girdles, hat-bands, belts, ruffs, and 
beaver hats. There were no Christmas festivals and 
no saints' days nor recognized saints, though special 
feasts and thanksgiving days were frequent.* The 
penal legislation of New England was harsh and 
severe, and in Massachusetts and Connecticut there 
were fifteen crimes punishable with death, while the 
law took hold also of innumerable petty offences. In 
addition the magistrates had a discretionary authori- 
ty, and they often punished persons on mere suspicion. 

There can be no doubt that the ideal of the edu- 
cated Puritan was lofty and high, and that society 
in New England was remarkably free from the or- 
dinary frivolities and immoralities of mankind ; but 
it would seem that human nature exacted a severe 
retaliation for the undue suppression of its weak- 
nesses. There are in the works of Bradford and 
Winthrop, as well as in the records of the colonies, 
evidence which shows that the streams of wicked- 
ness in New England were " dammed " and not dried 
up. At intervals the impure waters broke over the 
obstacles in their way, till the record of crime caused 
the good Bradford " to fear and tremble at the con- 
sideration of our corrupt natures." ' 

* Howe, Puritan Republic, 102, no, ni. 
' Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 459. 



lo SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

The conveniences of town life gave opportunities 
for literature not enjoyed by the Virginians, and, 
though his religion cut the Puritan almost entirely 
off from the finer fields of poetry and arts, New Eng- 
land in the period of which we have been consider- 
ing was strong in history and theology. Thus the 
works of Bradford and Winthrop and of Hooker and 
Cotton compare favorably with the best produc- 
tions of their contemporaries in England, and con- 
trast with the later writers of Cotton Mather's 
"glacial period," when, under the influence of the 
theocracy, " a lawless and merciless fury for the odd, 
the disorderly, the grotesque, the violent, strained 
analogies, unexpected images, pedantics, indelica- 
cies, freaks of allusion, and monstrosities of phrase " 
were the traits of New England literature.* 

' Tyler, American Literature, 11., 87. 



CHAPTER II 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF 
VIRGINIA 

(1634-1652) 

DURING the vicissitudes of government in Vir- 
ginia the colony continued to increase in wealth 
and population, and in 1634 eight counties were 
created;^ while an official census in April, 1635, 
showed nearly five thousand people, to which num- 
ber sixteen hundred were added in 1636. The 
new-comers during Harvey's time were principally 
servants who came to work the tobacco - fields.^ 
Among them were some convicts and shiftless 
people, but the larger number were persons of 
respectable standing, and some had comfortable 
estates and influential connections in England.' 
Freed from their service in Virginia, not a few at- 
tained positions as justices of the peace and bur- 
gesses in the General Assembly/ 

The trade of Virginia was become so extensive 

* Hening, Statutes, I., 224. 

* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 201, 231, 268. 
' William and Mary Quarterly, IV., 173-176, V., 40. 

* Virginia's Cure (Force, Tracts, III., No. xv.). 



12 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1634 

that Dutch as well as English ships sought the 
colony. The principal settlements were on the north 
side of James River, and as the voyager in 1634 
sailed from Chesapeake Bay he passed first the new 
fort at Point Comfort lately constructed by Captain 
Samuel Matthews. About five miles farther on was 
Newport News, chiefly remarkable for its spring, 
where all the ships stopped to take in water, at this 
time the residence of Captain Daniel Gookin, a prom- 
inent Puritan, who afterwards removed to Massa- 
chusetts. Five miles above Newport News, at Deep 
Creek, was Denbeigh, Captain Samuel Matthews's 
place, a miniature village rather than plantation, 
where many servants were employed, hemp and 
flax woven, hides tanned, leather made into shoes, 
cattle and swine raised for the ships outward bound, 
and a large dairy and numerous poultry kept. 

A few hours' sail from Denbeigh was Littletown, 
the residence of George Menifie. He had a garden 
of two acres on the river-side, which was full of roses 
of Provence, apple, pear, and cherry trees, and the 
various fruits of Holland, with different kinds of 
sweet-smelling herbs, such as rosemary, sage, mar- 
joram, and thyme. Growing around the house was 
an orchard of peach-trees, which astonished his vis- 
itors very much, for they were not to be seen any- 
where else on the coast.* 

About six miles farther was Jamestown, a village 

• De Vries, Voyages (N. Y. Hist. Soc, Collections, 2d series, 
III.. 34). 



1637] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 13 

of three hundred inhabitants, built upon two streets 
at the upper end of the island. There the governor 
resided with some of his council, one of whom, 
Captain William Pierce, had a garden of three or 
four acres, from which his wife a few years before 
obtained a hundred bushels of figs/ The houses 
there as elsewhere were of wood, with brick chim- 
neys, but architecture was improving. 

In 1637 the General Assembly offered a lot to 
every person who should build a house at James- 
town Island ; and in pursuance of the encouragement 
given, "twelve new houses and stores were built in 
the town," one of brick by Richard Kempe, "the 
fairest ever known in this country for substance and 
uniformity." About the same time money was 
raised for a brick church and a brick state-house.^ 
As to the general condition of the colony in 1634, 
Captain Thomas Young reported that there was not 
only a " very great plentie of milk, cheese, and but- 
ter, but of com, which latter almost every planter 
in the colony hath." ^ 

Such a " plentie of com" must be contrasted with 
the scarcity in 1630, for the current of prosperity did 
not run altogether smoothly. The mortality still 
continued frightful, and " during the months of June, 
July, and August, the people died like cats and 

• Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 887. 

^ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 288. In 1639 Alex- 
ander Stonar, brickmaker, patented land on Jamestown Island 
"next to the brick-kiln," Tyler, Cradle of the Repiiblic, 46, 99. 

^ Mass. Hist. Soc, Collections, 4th series, IX., 108. 



14 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1630 

dogs," ' a statement especially true of the servants, 
of whom hardly one in five survived the first year's 
hardships in the malarial tobacco-fields along the 
creeks and rivers.^ In 1630 tobacco tumbled from 
its high price of 35. 6d. to id. per pound, and the 
colony was much "perplexed" for want of money 
to buy com, which they had neglected to raise. 
To relieve the distress, Harvey, the next year, sent 
several ships to trade with the Indians up Chesa- 
peake Bay and on the coast as far south as Cape 
Fear." 

Tobacco legislation for the next ten years con- 
sisted in regulations vainly intended to prevent 
further declines. Tobacco fluctuated in value from 
one penny to sixpence, and, as it was the general 
currency, this imcertainty caused much trouble. 
Some idea of the general dependency upon tobacco 
may be had from a statute in 1640, which, after 
providing for the destruction of all the bad tobacco 
and half the good, estimated the remainder actually 
placed upon the market by a population of eight 
thousand at one million five hundred thousand 
pounds.^ 

The decline in the price of tobacco had the effect 
of turning the attention of the planters to other in- 
dustries, especially the supply of com to the large 

' De Vries, Voyages (N. Y. Hist. Soc, Collections, 2d series, 

ni..37). 

^ William and Mary Quarterly, VII., 66, 114. 

* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 117. 

* Hening, Statutes, I., 225. 



i64o] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 15 

emigration from England to Massachusetts. In 
163 1 a ship - load of com from Virginia was sold 
at Salem, in Massachusetts, for ten shillings the 
bushel.^ In 1634 at least ten thousand bushels 
were taken to Massachusetts, besides "good quanti- 
ties of beeves, goats, and hogs " ;^ and Harvey de- 
clared that Virginia had become "the granary of 
all his majesty's northern colonies," ^ Yet from an 
imported pestilence, the year 1636 was so replete 
with misery that Samuel Maverick, of Massachu- 
setts, who visited the colony, reported that eighteen 
hundred persons died, and corn sold at twenty shil- 
lings per bushel.* 

Sir Francis Wyatt arrived in the colony, Novem- 
ber, 1639, and immediately called Harvey to account 
for his abuse of power. The decree against Panton 
was repealed, and his estate, which had been seized, 
was returned to him, while the property of Harvey 
was taken to satisfy his numerous creditors.^ The 
agitation for the renewal of the charter still con- 
tinued, and Wyatt called a general assembly Jan- 
uary, 1640, at which time it was determined to 
make another effort. George Sandys was appoint- 
ed agent of the colony in England, and petitions 
reached England probably in the autumn of 1640. 
The breach between the king and Parliament was 

' Winthrop, New England, I., 67. 

^ Mass. Hist. Soc, Collections, 4th series, IX., no. 

' Cal. of State Pap., Col., 15 74-1 660, p. 184. 

* Winthrop, New England, I., 228. 

* Va. Magazine, V., 123-128. 



i6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1642 

then complete, and Charles had thrown himself 
entirely into the arms of the court party. Sandys, 
despairing of success from the king, appealed to 
Parliament in the name of the "Adventurers and 
Planters in Virginia," and "the Virginia patent was 
taken out again under the broad seal of England," * 
To what extent the new charter established the 
boundaries of Virginia does not appear, and the 
subsequent turn of affairs in Virginia made the ac- 
tion of Parliament at this time a nullity. 

To oflset these proceedings, the king commis- 
sioned' Sir William Berkeley, a vehement royalist, 
as successor to the popular Wyatt, and he arrived in 
Virginia in January, 1642, where he at once called 
an assembly to undo the work of Sandys. A pe- 
tition to the king protesting against the restoration 
of the company was adopted, but although it was 
signed by the council and burgesses, as well as by 
Berkeley, the preamble alludes to strong differences 
of opinion.' The change of position was doubtless 
brought about by the issue made in England be- 
tween loyalty and rebellion ; and, while desirous of a 
recharter, the majority of the people of Virginia did 
not care to desert the king. The petition was pre- 
sented July 5, 1642, to Charles at his headquarters 
at York, who returned a gracious reply that "he 



• Virginia and Maryland, or the Lord BalHmore's Printed 
Case, uncased and answered (Force, Tracts, II., No. ix.), 

» Va. Magazine, II., 281-288. 

* Hening, Statutes, I., 230-235. 



1642] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA • 17 

had not the least intention to consent to the intro- 
duction of any company." * 

While loyal to the king, the people of Virginia had 
never been wedded to the views of the high-church 
party in England. Among the ministers the surplice 
was not usual, and there was a Puritan severity 
about the laws in regard to the Sabbath and at- 
tendance at church. As the strife in England be- 
came more pronounced, the people in Nansemond 
and lower Norfolk counties, on the south of the 
James, showed decided leanings towards Parliament 
and to the congregational form of worship. 

Soon they began to think of separating from the 
church of England altogether, and they sent for min- 
isters to New England in 1642. In response, the 
elders there despatched three of their number, who, 
arriving in Virginia, set zealously to work to organ- 
ize the congregations on the Nansemond and Eliza- 
beth rivers. According to their own accoimt, these 
ministers met with much success till they were sud- 
denly stopped in the work by Berkeley, who per- 
suaded the assembly, in March, 1643, to pass severe 
laws against Nonconformists; and under this au- 
thority drove them out of the land in 1644.^ 

In the same year occurred an Indian attack which 
these preachers and John Winthrop, the governor 



* Manuscript Collection of Annals relating to Virginia (Force, 
Tracts, II., No. vi.). 

'Latane, Early Relations between Maryland and Virginia 
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIII., Nos. iii. and iv.). 



i8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1644 

of Massachusetts, thought to be a special visitation 
of Providence. After the massacre in 1622 the war 
with the Indians had continued in a desultory way 
for over twelve years. Year after year squads of 
soldiers were sent in various directions against the 
different tribes, and by 1634 the Indians were so 
punished that the whites thought it safe to make 
peace. Now, after a repose of ten years, the fierce 
instincts of the savages for blood were once more 
excited. 

April 18, 1644, was Good Friday, and Governor 
Berkeley ordered it to be kept as a special fast 
day to pray for King Charles; instead, it became a 
day of bloodshed and mourning.* The chief in- 
stigator of the massacre of 1622 was still alive, old 
Opechancanough, who, by the death of his brother 
Opitchapam, was now head chief of the Powhatan 
Confederacy. Thinking the civil war in England a 
favorable occasion to repeat the bloody deeds of 
twenty- two years before, on the day before Good 
Friday he attacked the settlers, and continued the 
assault for two days, killing over three hundred 
whites. The onslaught fell severest on the south 
side of James River and on the heads of the other 
rivers, but chiefly on the York River, where Ope- 
chancanough had his residence.^ 

The massacre of 1622 shook the colony to its 
foundation, and it is surprising to see how little 

' Winthrop, New England, II., 198, 199. 
* Ibid.; Beverley, Virginia, 48. 



1646] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 19 

that of 1644 afEected the current of life in Virginia. 
Berkeley seemed to think so little of the attack that 
after making William Claiborne general of an ex- 
pedition against the Pamunkey tribe he left the 
colony in June, 1645.* He was gone a whole year, 
and on his return found that Claiborne had driven 
the Indians far away from the settlements. In 
1646 he received information which enabled him to 
close the war with dramatic effect. At the head of a 
body of cavalry he surprised old Opechancanough in 
an encampment between the falls of the Appomattox 
and the James, and brought him, aged and blind, to 
Jamestown, where, about three weeks later, one of 
his guards shot him to death. ^ A peace was made 
not long after with Necotowance, his successor, by 
which the Indians agreed to retire entirely from the 
peninsula between the York and James rivers.' 

One of the most remarkable results of the massacre 
was the change it produced in Rev. Thomas Harri- 
son, Berkeley's chaplain at Jamestown, who had 
used his influence with the governor to expel the 
Nonconformist ministers of New England. He came 
to the belief of John Winthrop that the massacre 
was a Providential visitation and turned Puritan 
himself. After a quarrel with Berkeley he left 
Jamestown and took charge of the churches on 



• Va. Magazine, VIII., 71-73. 

' A Perfect Description of Virginia (Force, Tracts, XL, No. 
viii.) ; Beverley, Virginia, 49. 
^ Hening, Statutes, I., 323-326. 



20 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1649 

the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers with their 
Puritan congregations. Berkeley would probably 
have set the law-officers upon him at once, but 
among his councillors was Richard Bennett, himself 
of Harrison's congregation, and his influence held 
the governor back for a time. 

Three years passed, and at length Harrison and 
his elder, William Durand, were peremptorily direct- 
ed to leave the colony. Harrison went first to New 
England and then to old England, while William 
Durand emigrated to Maryland, where, aided by 
Bennett, he made terms with Governor William 
Stone for the emigration of his flock ; and in the year 
1649 more than one thousand persons left Virginia 
and settled on the Severn and Patuxent rivers. The 
settlement was called Providence, and was destined 
to play a remarkable part in the history of Mary- 
land.^ 

When the civil war in England was fairly on , emi- 
gration to Virginia was much improved in material, 
and for many years was very large. The new- 
comers came to make homes, not merely to make 
tobacco, and they no longer consisted of servants, 
but of the merchants and yeomanry of England. 
" If these troublous times hold long amongst us," 
wrote William Hallam, a salter of Bumham, in 
Essex County, England, " we must all faine come to 
Virginia." * 

* Latane, Early Relations {Johns Hopkins University Studies, 
XIII.). * William and Mary Quarterly, VIII., 239. 



1649] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 21 

Hitherto the uncertainty resulting from the over- 
throw of the charter made it difficult to secure a 
good class of ministers. Those who came had been 
"such as wore black coats and could babble in a 
pulpet, and roare in a tavern, exact from their 
parishioners, and rather by their dissolutenesse de- 
stroy than feed their flocks." Now these "wolves 
in sheep's clothing" were by the assembly forced to 
depart the country and a better class of clergy- 
men arrived.^ In 1649 there were twenty churches 
and twenty ministers who taught the doctrines of 
the church of England and "lived all in peace and 
love";* and at the head -of them was a man of ex- 
emplary piety, Rev. Philip Mallory, son of Dr. 
Thomas Mallory, Dean of Chester.^ 

The condition of things about 1648 is thus 
summed up by Hammond, a contemporary writer: 
"Then began the gospel to flourish; civil, honorable, 
and men of great estates flocked in; famous build- 
ings went forward; orchards innumerable were 
planted and preserved ; tradesmen set to work and, 
encouraged, staple commodities, as silk, flax, pot- 
ashes attempted on. ... So that this country, which 
had a mean beginning, many back friends, two ruin- 
ous and bloody massacres, hath by God's grace out- 
grown all, and is become a place of pleasure and 
plenty.'^ 

^ Hammond, Leah and Rachel (Force, Tracts, III., No. xiv.). 
' Perfect Description (ibid., II., No. viii.). 
' Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 238; Tyler, Cradle of tlie Re- 
public, 90. 
3 



22 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1651 

Later, after the beheading of King Charles in 
1649, there was a large influx of cavaliers, who, while 
they raised the quality of society, much increased 
the sympathy felt in Virginia for the royal cause. 
Under their influence Sir William Berkeley de- 
nounced the murder of King Charles I., and the 
General Assembly adopted an act making it treason 
to defend the late proceedings or to doubt the right 
of his son, Charles II., to succeed to the crown.* 
Parliament was not long in accepting the challenge 
which Berkeley tendered. In October, 1650, they 
adopted an ordinance prohibiting trade with the re- 
bellious colonies of Virgiaia, Barbadoes, Antigua, 
and Bermuda Islands, and authorizing the Coun- 
cil of State to take measures to reduce thera to 
terms. ^ 

In October, 165 1, was passed the first of the 
navigation acts, which limited the colonial trade to 
England, and banished from Virginia the Dutch 
vessels, which carried abroad most of the exports. 
About the same time, having taken measures against 
Barbadoes, the Council of State ordered a squadron 
to be prepared against Virginia. It was placed 
under the command of Captaia Robert Dennis ; and 
Thomas Stegge, Richard Bennett, and William 
Claiborne, members of Berkeley's council, were 
joined with him in a commission' to "use their 



' Hening, Statutes, I., 359-361. 

' Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 343. 

' Md. Archives, III., 265-267. 



i6s2] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 23 

best endeavors to reduce all the plantations within 
the Bay of Chesopiack." Bennett and Claiborne 
were in Virginia at the time, and probably did not 
know of their appointment till the ships arrived in 
Virginia. 

The fleet left England in October, 165 1, carrying 
six hundred men, but on the way Captain Dennis 
and Captain Stegge were lost in a storm and the 
command devolved on Captain Edmund Curtis/ 
In December they reached the West Indies, where 
they assisted Sir George Ayscue in the reduction of 
Barbadoes. In January, 1652, they reached Vir- 
ginia, where Curtis showed Claiborne and Bennett 
his duplicate instructions. Berkeley, full of fight, 
called out the militia, twelve hundred strong, and 
engaged the assistance of a few Dutch ships then 
trading in James River contrary to the recent navi- 
gation act. 

The commissioners acted with prudence and good 
sense. They did not proceed at once to Jamestown, 
but first issued a proclamation intended to disabuse 
the people of any idea that they came to make 
war.^ The result was that in March, 1652, when 
they appeared before the little capital, the council 
and burgesses overruled Berkeley, and entered into 
an agreement with Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, 
which proves the absence of hard feelings on both 
sides. The Virginians recognized the authority of 

* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 393, 

' See report of the commissioners, Va. Magazine, XL, 32. 



24 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

the commonwealth of England, and promised to 
pass no statute contrary to the laws of Parliament. 
On the other hand, the commissioners acknowl- 
edged the submission of Virginia, "as a voluntary 
act not forced nor constrained by a conquest upon 
the countrey"; and conceded her right "to be free 
from all taxes, customs, and impositions whatever, 
not enforced by the General Assembly." In par- 
ticular it was stipulated that "Virginia should have 
and enjoy the antient bounds and lymitts granted 
by the charters of the former kings." 

The articles were signed March 12, 1652, and the 
commissioners soon after sailed to St. Mary's and 
received the surrender of Maryland. They returned 
in time to be present at a new meeting of the as- 
sembly held at Jamestown in April, at which it was 
unanimously voted that imtil the further pleasure 
of Parliament was known Richard Bennett should 
be governor and William Claiborne secretary of 
state. To the burgesses, as the representatives of 
the people, was handed over the supreme power of 
thereafter electing all officers of the colony.^ Then 
Virginia, th^ last of the British dominions to aban- 
don the king, entered upon eight years of almost 
complete self-government, under the protection of 
the commonwealth of England. 

In 1652 the settlements in Virginia were em- 
braced in thirteen counties, of which Northampton, 
on the Accomack Peninsula, extended to the southern 

* Hening, Statutes, I., 363, 371. 



1652] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 25 

boundary of Maryland. On the James River were 
nine counties: Henrico, Charles City, James City, 
Surry, Warwick, Warascoyack, or Isle of Wight, 
Elizabeth City, Nansemond, and Lower Norfolk, 
On York River were York County on the south 
side and Gloucester on the north side.^ On the 
Rappahannock was Lancaster County, extending 
on both sides of the river from Pianketank to Divid- 
ing Creek in the Northern Neck; and on the Poto- 
mac was the county of Northumberland, first settled 
about 1638 at Chicacoan and Appomattox on the 
Potomac, by refugees from Maryland.^ 

Towards the south the plantations, following the 
watercourses, had spread to the heads of the creeks 
and rivers, tributaries of the James, and some 
persons more adventurous than the rest had even 
made explorations in North Carolina.^ Westward 
the extension was, of course, greatest along the line 
of the James, reaching as far as the Falls where 
Richmond now stands. The population was prob- 
ably about twenty thousand, of whom as many as 
five thousand were white servants and five hundred 
were negroes. 

The houses throughout the colony were generally 
of wood, a story and a half high, and were roofed 
with shingles. The chimneys were of brick, and the 
wealthier people lived in houses constructed wholly 

* Virginia Land Grants, MSS. 

^ Md. Archives, IV., 268, 315. 

'Bancroft, United States (22dcd.), II., 134. 



26 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

of home-made brick. ^ "They had, besides, good 
EngHsh furniture" and a "good store of plate." 
By ordinary labor at making tobacco any person 
could clear annually ;^2o sterling, the equivalent of 
$500 to-day. The condition of the servants had 
greatly improved, and their labor was not so hard 
nor of such continuance as that of farmers and 
mechanics in England. Thefts were seldom com- 
mitted, and an old writer asserts that "he was an 
eye-witness in England to more deceits and villanies 
in four months than he ever saw or heard mention 
of in Virginia in twenty years abode there." ^ 

The plenty of everything made hospitality uni- 
versal, and the health of the country was greatly 
promoted by the opening of the forests. Indeed, so 
contented were the people with their new homes 
that the same writer declares, " Seldom (if ever) any 
that hath continued in Virginia any time will or do 
desire to live in England, but post back with what 
expedition they can, although many are landed 
men in England, and have good estates there, and 
divers wayes of preferments propounded to them 
to entice and perswade their continuance." 

In striking contrast to New England was the ab- 
sence of towns, due mainly to two reasons — first, 
the wealth of watercourses, which enabled every 
planter of means to ship his products from his own 

* Tyler, "Colonial Brick Houses," in Century Alagacine, 
February, 1896. 

' Hammond, Leah and Raclui (Force, Tracts, HI., No. xiv.). 



1652] CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA 27 

wharf; and, secondly, the culture of tobacco, which 
scattered the people in a continual search for new 
and richer lands. This rural life, while it hindered 
co-operation, promoted a spirit of independence 
among the whites of all classes which counteracted 
the aristocratic form of government. The colony 
was essentially a democracy, for though the chief 
offices in the counties and the colony at large were 
held by a few families, the people were protected by 
a popular House of Burgesses, which till 1736 was 
practically established on manhood suffrage. Negro 
slavery tended to increase this independence by 
making race and not wealth the great distinction; 
and the ultimate result was seen after 1792, when 
Virginia became the headquarters of the Democra- 
tic-Republican party — the party of popular ideas.* 

Under the conditions of Virginia society, no devel- 
oped educational system was possible, but it is wrong 
to suppose that there was none. The parish insti- 
tutions introduced from England included educa- 
tional beginnings; every minister had a school, and 
it was the duty of the vestry to see that all poor 
children could read and write. The county courts 
supervised the vestries and held a yearly " orphans' 
court," which looked after the material and educa- 
tional welfare of all orphans.^ 

'Tyler, "Virginians Voting in the Colonial Period," in 
Williatn and Mary Quarterly, VI., 9. 

^"Education in Colonial Virginia," Williatn and Mary 
Quarterly, V., 219-223, VI., 1-7, 71-86, 171-186, VII., 1-9, 
65. 77- 



28 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1659 

The benevolent design of a free school in the 
colony, frustrated by the massacre of 1622, was 
realized in 1635, when — three years before John 
Harvard bequeathed his estate to the college near 
Boston which bears his name — Benjamin Syms left 
" the first legacy by a resident of the American 
plantations of England for the promotion of edu- 
cation," * In 1659 Thomas Eaton established ^ a free 
school in Elizabeth City County, adjoining that of 
Benjamin Syms; and a fund amounting to $10,000, 
representing these two ancient charities, is still used 
to carry on the public high-school at Hampton, Vir- 
ginia. In 1655 Captain John Moon left a legacy 
for a free school in Isle of Wight County; and in 
1659 Captain William Whittington left two thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco for a free school in North- 
ampton County. 

' Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 112. 

' " Eaton's Deed," in William and Mary Quarterly, XL, 19. 



CHAPTER III 

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE COLONIES 

(1652-1689) 

THE number of the colonists in 1689 may be esti- 
mated at from two hundred thousand to two 
hundred and fifty thousand, variously distributed: 
New Hampshire contained about five thousand in- 
habitants; Massachusetts, including Plymouth and 
Maine, fifty thousand ; Rhode Island, four thousand ; 
Connecticut, between seventeen and twenty thou- 
sand; New York, between eighteen and twenty 
thousand ; East New Jersey, somewhat fewer than 
ten thousand; West New Jersey, four thousand; 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, twelve thousand ; Mary- 
land, thirty thousand ; Virginia, between fifty and 
sixty thousand ; North Carolina, between two and 
three thousand ; and South Carolina not more than 
three thousand. 

The territory thus occupied extended for about a 
thousand miles from Pemaquid to Charles Town, for 
the colonists passed but short distances back from 
the ocean, and then chiefly along the navigable 
rivers. Between adjoining colonies, even in 1689, 
boundaries were largely undefined, and, except where 



30 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

rivers determined the line of division, were destined 
to be a source of perplexity and trouble, in some 
instances for a century to come. Territorial claims 
growing out of conflicting royal grants continued to 
offer to the colonists difficult and vexatious prob- 
lems that could be solved only by compromise and 
agreement; and unfortunately in some cases the 
mutual good will essential to such a solution was 
wanting. 

In the main the settlers were of English stock. 
New England was ethnically almost homogeneous, 
though a few French Huguenots, Scots-Irish, and 
Jews were found scattered among her people. In 
New York more than half the inhabitants were 
Dutch, the remainder English and French, the 
former largely predominating, and a sufficient num- 
ber of Jews to warrant the building of a synagogue.^ 
New Jersey was largely English, though there were 
many Scots, Dutch, and French living here and 
there in the towns and plantations. West New 
Jersey contained many Swedes and Dutch as well 
as English; and Pennsylvania was a composite of 
Finns, Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Scots, Welsh, and 
English. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina 
were settled by Englishmen only; South Carolina, 
on the other hand, a colony of one city, had already 
begun to show diversity of stocks, and though in 
large part settled by Englishmen, included French- 

• Miller, Description of New York, 31, 37; Lodwick, " Account 
of New York," Sloane MSS., in British Museum, 3339, £. 252. 



16S9] SOCIAL LIFE 31 

men and Scots among its inhabitants. Not until 
the next century, however, did the immigration 
of Swiss, Scots-Irish, and German palatines into 
South Carolina begin in earnest. 

This population was made up of free settlers, 
bond servants, and slaves, though bondage and 
slavery played a very small part in New England, 
where the economic conditions were unfavorable 
to such labor. Still, Randolph could report two 
hundred slaves there in 1676,^ and we know that, 
notwithstanding the Quaker protest against the 
slave - trade in Rhode Island, Newport was the 
receiving and disbursing centre for most of the 
negroes who were brought from Guinea and Mada- 
gascar.^ In New York slaves were used chiefly 
as body - serv^ants and for domestic purposes, 
and Coxe mentions four in West New Jersey in 
1687. 

Even in the South the economic importance of 
slavery was as yet hardly recognized, and though 
there were many slaves in Maryland, Virginia, and 
South Carolina, they did not form the indispensable 
laboring class that they afterwards became. Berke- 
ley, writing in 167 1, said that there were forty thou- 
sand persons in Virginia, of whom two thousand were 
"black slaves" and six thousand "Christian ser- 
vants"; and that in the preceding seven years but 
two or three ships of negroes had come to the 

' Hutchinson Papers, II., 219. 

* Amer. Antiq. Soc, Proceedings, October, 1887, p. iii. 



32 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

colony.* Yet the numbers increased rapidly, and 
towards the end of the century a planter, stocking 
a new plantation, was able to draw his supply 
from the colony itself.^ 

During the seventeenth century in the south, 
white servants were preferred to the negroes as 
laborers, and Berkeley could say that fifteen hundred 
came every year to Virginia. Many were Irish and 
Scottish, but the great mass of the servants was 
English, They came to America under the in- 
denture or redemption system, according to which 
servants bound themselves to work for a certain 
number of years, generally from four to six, on the 
lands or in the houses of the masters who advanced 
money to pay the shipmasters for their passage. 
This practice became one of the most efficient 
aids to colonization in the seventeenth century, 
and thousands of settlers came to America under 
this obligation to labor. The New-Englanders had 
few servants, except on hired wages,^ but they 
experimented with Indians, who proved very in- 
efficient as laborers and servants, being not only 
inapt but unwilling. 

Writers differ somewhat in their estimates of the 
servant's life in America. Dankers and Sluyter, 
the Labadist missionaries, strongly prejudiced 



* Berkeley's Answers to Queries, in Public Record Office, 
Colonial Papers, XXVI., No. 77, i. 

^ Bruce, Econ. Hisi. of Virginia, II., 87, 88. 
^ Hvitchinson Papers, II., 219. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 33 

against the practice, spoke in terms of severe con- 
demnation of the "planter's avarice, which must be 
fed and sustained by the bloody sweat of their poor 
slaves." ^ But other accounts are more favorable. 
Alsop, himself an indentured servant, believed that 
the position was less grievous than that of the or- 
dinary apprentice in England.^ Hammond says 
that servants were not put to "so hard or continu- 
ous labor as husbandmen and handicraftsmen were 
obliged to perform in England. . . . Little or noth- 
ing is done," he adds, "in winter time, none ever 
work before sunrising or after sunset. In the sum- 
mer they rest, sleep, or exercise themselves five 
hours in the heat of the day; Saturday afternoon 
is always their own, the old holidays are observed, 
and the Sabbath spent in good exercise."^ G. L., 
writing from West New Jersey, confirms this account 
when he says that " servants work here, not so much 
by a third as they do in England, and I think feed 
much better, for they have beef, pork, bacon, pud- 
ding, milk, butter, fish, and fruit more plentiful than 
in England, and good beer and syder." ^ 

However hard the servant's life may have been, 
there was always the expectation of serving their 
time and becoming hired laborers at two shillings 
or two shillings and sixpence a day. Some of the 

' Bankers and Sluyter, Journal, 191, 192. 
^ Alsop, Character of tlie Province of Maryland, chap. iii. 
' Hammond, Leah and Rachel, 12. 

* " Quaker's Account of New Jersey," Rawlinson AISS., in 
Bod. Lib., D 810, f. 55. 



34 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

best of the later colonists, particularly in the south, 
traced their descent to industrious indentured ser- 
vants who "crept" out of their condition, got good 
estates of cattle, houses, and servants of their own, 
and became husbandmen and freeholders/ 

During the period from 1650 to 1690 the colonists 
gained steadily in the conveniences and comforts 
of living. Food and shelter were easily obtainable, 
and in the large towns even luxury prevailed to a 
small extent. There was sometimes serious suffering 
from the miseries of Indian attacks, the frequency 
of serious sickness, and in the north the inclemency 
of the winter. In South Carolina many of the new- 
comers complained of the miseries of chills and 
fever — "seasoning" they called it; and in Mary- 
land and Virginia there was a good deal of pov- 
erty owing to the fluctuations of the tobacco crop. 
Moryson, speaking for Virginia in 1676, said that the 
"better sort" lived on poultry, hogs, and what deer 
and fowl their servants could kill for them. They 
drank, though "this not common," beer and ale.^ 

Thomas Newe, in 1682, found tj.e people of Charles 
Town drinking molasses and water, and learned 
that no malt up to that time had been made in 
the colony.^ In the Jerseys beer was a common 

* " Quaker's Account of New Jersey," Rawlinson MSS., in 
Bod. Lib., D 810, f. 55; Hammond, Leali and Rachel, 14; Wil- 
son, Account of Carolina (Carroll, Hist. Collections, II., 24). 

^ Moryson's "Answers," Rawlinson AISS., in Bod. Lib., A 
185, f. 256. 

^ Newe to his father, May 17, 1682, ibid., D 810, f. 53. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 35 

drink, and we hear occasionally of brew-houses, and 
meet with requests sent to England for brewers. 
Cider was used chiefly in the middle and northern 
colonies, and occasionally brandy and wines were 
obtainable, when vessels from the West Indies and 
Canaries came to the colonies. 

The "ordinary sort" of people in Virginia, Mary- 
land, and Delaware lived on Indian corn, "a grain 
of general use to man and beast." "They beat it in 
a mortar," says a traveller, "and get the husks from 
it, and then boyle it with a piece of beef or salted 
pork with some kidney-beans, which is much like 
to pork and pease at sea, but they call it hommony." 
The people ate also bread made of the same corn, 
ground by hand, for grist-mills, common in New 
England, were scarce in the southern colonies; and 
raised a few vegetables, often of the coarsest kind.* 
Cook describes the planter's home in Maryland in 
words that may well be based on experience : 

" So after hearty Entertainment, 
Of Drink and victuals without Payment; 

For Planters' Tables, you must know. 

Are free for all that come and go. 
While Pon and Milk, with Mush well stoar'd. 
In wooden Dishes grac'd the Board; 

With Homine and Syder-pap, 

(Which scarce a hungry Dog wou'd lap) 
Well stufi'd with Fat, from Bacon fry'd, 
Or with Molassiis dulcify 'd." ^ 

* Moryson's "Answers," i?a«;/m5on M5S., in Bod. Lib., A 185, 
f. 256; Dankers and Sluyter, Journal, 217, 218; Sloane MSS., in 
British Museum, 2291, f. i. 

^ Cook, Sot-Weed Factor (Md. Hist. Soc, Fund Publications 
No. 36), 4. 



36 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

In South Carolina the conditions were better, 
and Wilson assures us that while those living near 
the marshes were subject to ague, settlers on the 
higher ground did very well. He says that the 
soil was fertile and produced good corn, excellent 
pasture, wheat, rye, barley, oats, pease, and garden 
vegetables in large variety ; that cattle, sheep, horses, 
and other animals were easily raised, while negroes 
thrived better than in the north and required fewer 
clothes, whifch, as he naively remarks, "is a great 
charge saved." * Thomas Newe's letters to his 
father give a favorable view of the colony, and are 
especially valuable as the unbiased impressions of 
a new-comer. "The soil," he writes, "is generally 
very light, but apt to produce whatever is put into 
it. There are already all sorts of English fruit and 
garden herbs, besides many others I never saw in 
England." He thinks that the colony is in very 
good condition, considering the fact that most of 
the first settlers were "tradesmen, poor and whol- 
ly ignorant of husbandry, and till of late but few 
in number, so that their whole business was to 
clear a little ground to get bread for their families, 
few of them having wherewithal to purchase a 
cow." 

As for prices, Newe thought things dear in 
Charles Town : milk, 2d. a quart ; beef, ^d. a pound ; 
pork, 3<i. a pound, "but far better than our Eng- 
lish" ; and he attributes these prices to the fact that 

* Wilson, in Carroll, Hist. Collections, II., 26, 27. 



1689I SOCIAL LIFE 37 

"cattle sold so well to new-comers that the planters 
saved none for killing," being furnished by the 
Indians with fowl, fish, and venison "for a trifle." * 
G. L. shows that prices were a little lower in West 
New Jersey, and quotes pork at 2^(i. a pound, 
beef and venison id. a pound, a fat buck 5s. or 6s., 
Indian corn at 2s. 6d. a bushel, oats 25., and barley 
25.^ By witness of all, money was very scarce, 
payment being made in natural products, or oc- 
casionally in Spanish coin, receivable in England 
at four or five shillings less in the pound than in 
the colonies. 

In Pennsylvania, New York, and New England 
the standard of living was higher than in Maryland 
and Virginia, for the attention of the colonists was 
not absorbed in the cultivation of tobacco to the 
neglect of other staple products of the soil. Many 
fruits and vegetables were raised, and others were 
found growing in the woods ; cows, sheep, goats, hogs, 
as well as geese and chickens, were easily cared for; 
and in the large cities of the north, and of the south 
as well, colonial products, such as cloves, pepper, 
and other spices, could be found, brought from 
England or the West Indies. In many of the col- 
onies, notably South Carolina, Maryland, and the 
Jerseys, oysters were obtainable in large quanti- 
ties from the river mouths and inlets, and every- 



• Newe to his father, Rawlinson MSS., in Bod. Lib., D 810, 

ff- 53. 54- 

* " Quaker's Accoiint of New Jersey," ibid., f. 55. 

4 



38 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

where fish was plentiful, and venison was easily 
procured. 

Houses were at first of logs ; later frame buildings, 
clajiboarded and shingled, were erected. In West 
New Jersey, says G. L., "the poorer sort set up a 
house of two or three rooms themselves in this 
manner. Their walls arc cloven timber about 
three inches broad, like planks, set upon end in the 
ground, the other [end] nailed to the raising, which 
they plaster warm, and they build a barn after the 
same manner." ' Bankers and Sluyter mention 
similar houses in East New Jersey, "rude in struct- 
ure but comfortable, constructed of trees split and 
stood on end and shingled." " The great majority 
of houses everywhere were built of wood, often 
larger than those just mentioned, having two or 
three rooms to a fioor, and in New England a sec- 
ond floor, an attic, and generally a lean-to. A few of 
the southern plantations boasted elaborate wooden 
houses. 

In the cities some brick buildings existed. In 
1660 Boston was a great town, with two churches, 
a State-house, market-place, and good shops ;^ in 
1679 it was described as " a large city on a fine bay, 
with three churches, the houses covered with thin 
cedar shingles nailed against frames and then filled 

' " Qtiaker's Account of New Jersey," Rawlinson M5S., in 
Bod. Lib., D Sio. f. 55. 

^ Dankers and Sluyter, Jounujl, 173, 175. 

^ Maverick, Description c/ A'fzc England (iV. E. Historical 
and Genealogical Register, XXXIX., 43). 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE • 39 

with bricks and other stuff." ^ Maverick describes 
Plymouth and New Haven as poor towns, the latter 
not as glorious as it once was ; Hartford as a gallant 
town with many rich men in it.^ Albany had 
about two hundred houses, mostly of stone and 
brick, and a fort fifteen feet high, made of logs. 
New York had eight hundred houses built of the 
same materials, and a fort, with four bastions and 
thirty-nine guns, well maintained and garrisoned 
with a large body of soldiers. It faced the harbor, 
in which Governor Dongan thought a thousand 
ships might ride safe from wind and weather. Its 
chaplain, Wolley, was not very favorably impressed 
with the appearance of the city, but Denton thought 
it exceedingly pleasing with its houses covered with 
red tiles. ^ 

Across the river were the towns of East New 
Jersey, small and unpretentious, though Elizabeth 
had a court-house, a prison, and six hundred in- 
habitants, and was the largest and most important 
in the region. Perth Amboy was well situated at 
the head of a spacious harbor, into which, says 
G. L., a ship of three hundred tons burden could 
"safely come and ride close to the shore within a 
plank's length just before the houses of the town. 
. . . The land there," continues the same writer, 

* Bankers and Sluyter, Journal, 394, 395. 

' Maverick, Description, 45, 47. 

' Wolley, Two Years' Journal, 55; Denton, Brief Description 
of New York, 2 ; Dongan's Answers to Queries (1687) , Cal. of State 
Pap., Col., 1685-1688, §327. 



40 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

"is not low, swampy, marsh ground, but pretty 
high ground, rising thirty, in some places forty, foot 
high, and yet hath many conveniences for landing 
goods."* The whole region from the Hudson to 
the Delaware, according to the testimony of many 
witnesses, was healthful and fertile, and many of 
the correspondents of this period think a man 
better off in New Jersey and Pennsylvania than in 
England.^ 

From East New Jersey to West New Jersey and 
Philadelphia one stepped into a different social at- 
mosphere. There were large places like Burlington, 
Salem, and Gloucester, centres of commerce and 
trade, and readily accessible "in boats from a 
small canoe to vessels of thirty, forty, fifty, and in 
some places of a hundred tons." ^ Gabriel Thomas 
describes Burlington as a famous town, with many 
stately brick houses, a great market - house, with 
markets and fairs to which the people from the 
country round were wont to gather; while outside 
the town were country-houses for the gentry, 
gardens and orchards, bridges and ferries over the 
rivers.* Wherry boats plied across the Delaware 
to Philadelphia, already a large and commodious 
town, with wharves and timber-yards, ship-yards 

' " Quaker's Account of New Jersey," Rawlinson MSS., in 
Bod. Lib., D 810, f. 55. 

' Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietors, App., passim. 

' " Quaker's Account of New Jersey," Rawlinson MSS., in 
Bod. Lib., D 810, f. 55. 

« Thomas, Description of West New Jersey, 15, 19. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 41 

and rope-walks. Near by were four market towns 
— Chester, Germantown, New Castle, and Lewiston 
— among which watermen plied their wherries. 
Farther back in the country were villages — Haver- 
ford, Merioneth, and Radnor — whose names betray 
their Welsh origin. 

Passing from the Delaware to the Chesapeake, a 
traveller entered still another environment, and, 
as he pushed down the eastern shore, journeyed 
generally on foot or by boats from plantation to 
plantation, crossing many creeks and rivers, and 
lengthening his course by circuitous routes around 
marshy places and impassable morasses. On the 
high ground lived the planters, rich and poor, with 
their servants and slaves. Nowhere in Maryland 
were there compact settlements such as we find 
in New England, nor yet were the conditions ex- 
actly the same as those in Virginia. The Puritan 
settlement, Providence, was a town, and the names 
of Oxford Town, Calvert Town, Charles Town, and 
Battle Town bear witness to the efforts of the 
proprietary to erect centres of population in his 
province. His best endeavors were never very suc- 
cessful; even St. Mary's City, the seat of govern- 
ment, was without social or economic unity, for its 
inhabitants lived for thirty miles along the bay. 
Virginia, on the other hand, had not a semblance of 
a town. As contemporary writers put it, "there 
were neither towns, markets, nor money," * only 

* Hartwell, Blair, and Chilton, Present State of Virginia. 



42 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [165J 

scattered plantations along the rivers, each witli its 
wharf and landing-place, an independent, self- 
sufficing commimity. In North Carolina, if we 
may judge from the account given by George Fox 
in his journal, the inhabitants lived as widely 
separated from one another as in Virginia, com- 
municating with dilTiculty and at rare intervals. 
South Carolina had one city, Charles Town, situated 
on low ground at the junction of the Ashley and 
Cooper rivers. Foundeti as a village of a few 
houses in it)8o. it had risen by 1682 to be a town of 
one hundred structures, all built of wockI, though 
there appears to have been good material for 
brick in the neighborhood. The city faced an ex- 
cellent harbor, was capable of strong defence, and 
was readily approached by small vessels and (with 
the aid of a pilot) by ships of many tons burden. 
In the immediate neighborhood were a few planta- 
tion settlements, but up to 1689 no attempts were 
made to push back the frontier and explore the 
interior. 

Among the colonies, as a whole, communication 
was infrequent. Coasting vessels ran from New 
England to New York, the Delaware, Virginia, and 
Carolina, and larger ships occasionally put in from 
England or the West Indies. Transportation was 
almost entirely by water; horses were used at times 
for cross-country travel, but they were expensive, 
and the colonists bred them rather for export than 
for use. Land travel was generally on foot, and 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 43 

consequently the mass of the people journeyed very 
little. 

Habits and modes of life throughout all the 
colonies were of the very simplest sort. Very few 
houses were elaborately furnished, and, except in 
the commercial centres, few fabrics or furniture of 
English or foreign manufacture were seen. It is ex- 
traordinarily rare to find a settler, like Giles Brent 
of Maryland, boasting of three estates, well stocked, 
large quantities of gold and silver plate, many 
precious stones, including "one great diamond" 
worth ;^2oo, tapestry wrought with gold and silk, 
linen, pewter, and brass sufficient to furnish two 
large houses, and "a fair library of books" worth 
^140.* One can but wonder if Brent had friends 
among the buccaneers. 

Daily intercourse was devoid of ceremonial, and, 
in New England especially, social standards, though 
often rigid and even aristocratic, were free from 
the strict class distinctions of English society. In 
New York, among the officials of the city and 
the soldiers of the garrison, and in the southern 
colonies among councillors, governors, and propri- 
etaries, English practices and ceremonies prevailed. 

An example of stateliness was the funeral of 
William Lovelace. The room in which the de- 
ceased lay was heavily draped with mourning and 
adorned with the escutcheons of the family. At 

* Copley c. Ingle, Admiralty Court, Libels, Public Record 
Office, 107, No. 265. 



44 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

the head of the body was a pall of death's-heads, 
and above and about the hearse was a canopy 
richly embroidered, from the centre of which hung 
a garland and an hour-glass. At the foot was a 
gilded coat of arms, four feet square, and near by 
were candles and fumes which were kept con- 
tinually burning. At one side was placed a cup- 
board containing plate to the value of ;£2oo. The 
funeral procession was led by the captain of the 
company to which the deceased had belonged, 
followed by the "preaching minister," two others of 
the clergy, and a squire bearing the shield. Before 
the body, which was borne by six "gentlemen 
bachelors," walked two maidens in white silk, 
wearing gloves and " Cyprus scar\^es," and behind 
were six others similarly attired, bearing the pall. 
After the maidens came the uncle of the deceased, 
Governor Francis Lovelace, and his councillors, and 
four halberts wearing coats richly embroidered 
with crests. Then, preceded by the mace, came the 
mayor of the city, the aldermen, and a long line of 
ship - captains, burghers, and others, Dutch and 
English, walking two and two. The procession 
wended its way to the fort, where amid salvos of 
musketry the body was lowered into the grave. 
Until ten o'clock at night wines, sweetmeats, and 
biscuits were served to the mourners.* 

' "Funeral Solemnities at the Interment of Mr. William Love- 
lace at New York, 1671" {Ashmolean MSS., in Bod. Lib., 
846. f. 54). 



1 6891 SOCIAL LIFE 45 

Such elaborate and expensive ceremonies were 
elsewhere unknown to the colonists; usually the 
commemorations of births, marriages, and deaths 
were exceedingly unpretentious. Money was scarce, 
and while a few governors, like Berkeley in Virginia, 
kept a coach and pair, and could have diamond- 
shaped panes in the windows of their houses, even the 
royal appointees at this time made but little attempt 
at ostentatious display. Exhibitions of wealth and 
of family arms and crests were hardly in keeping 
with the temper of the colonists ; and though there 
were families of rank in New England as well as 
in Virginia, there was little opportunity, and less 
desire, to exercise the prerogatives of rank. 

Outside New England, religious and intellectual 
life was as yet undeveloped. The Church of Eng- 
land was to all intents and purposes the estab- 
lished church of South Carolina, as it was of Virginia, 
and there are few traces of other denominations, 
though Nonconformists had aided in settling the 
colony. Virginia in 1671 had forty-eight parishes, 
and presumably as many ministers, though that 
does not necessarily follow. Berkeley spoke of the 
ministers as well paid, but wished that they would 
pray oftener and preach less, and said that no 
ministers of ability had come to Virginia since "the 
persecution in Cromwell's tyranny drew divers 
worthy men hither." ^ 

' Berkeley's Answers to Queries (MSS. in Public Record Office, 
Colonial Papers, XXVI., No. 77, i.). 



46 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

Maryland has been considered the strongest 
AngHcan colony ; but the strength of the church in 
Maryland has been exaggerated. Three-quarters of 
the colonists were Dissenters, and of the remainder 
a considerable number were Roman Catholics. In 
1676, John Yeo reported only three ministers of the 
Church of England in Maryland, though he spoke 
of others who pretended to be such ' ' that never 
had a legal ordination." In 1677, even Baltimore 
could mention only four ministers with planta- 
tions of their own.^ Contemporary evidence shows 
clearly that in many ways the condition of the 
church in Maryland was deplorable. Yeo, writ- 
ing from Pawtuxent to the archbishop of Canter- 
bury in 1676, bewails the state of the province, 
calling it a Sodom of uncleanness and a pest-house 
of iniquity. Dankers and Sluyter speak of the re- 
ligious life there as stagnant, the people as god- 
less and profane, listening neither to God nor to 
His commandments, and having neither church nor 
cloister." This statement may be deemed a prej- 
udiced one, as the narrators were Labadists, seeking 
a home for their sect in America; nevertheless it is 
borne out b}'' the petition of ]\Iary and Michael Tany 
of Calvert Town, who about 1685 prayed king, 
archbishop, and all the bishops of England to send 
over a minister to a suffering community, where the 
people were too poor, on account of the navigation 

* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1675-1676, §1005, 1677-1680, § 348. 
' Dankers and Sluyter, Journal, 218. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 47 

acts, to maintain church or clergy. They recalled 
the fact that as a result of a former petition Charles 
II. had sent over " a minister and a parcel of Bibles 
and other church-books of considerable value," but 
that now they were without church or settled min- 
istry of any kind.^ Cook, in his Sot-Weed Factor, 
agrees with these views. ^ 

The Labadists were hardly more complimentary 
to New York, where an Anglican church had been 
established at the conquest in 1664. Though the 
duke of York appointed a chaplain to the garrison 
at New York as early as 1674, no clergyman ap- 
peared until Wolley came over in 1680, as chap- 
lain of the fort. Miller in his description is very 
scornful of the religious life of New York, deem- 
ing all Dissenters only "pretended ministers" and 
charging them with leading ungodly lives.' In New 
Jersey the first Anglican church was at Elizabeth, 
where the services were conducted by a lay reader; 
and in Philadelphia the first Episcopal church was 
not built until 1695. 

Though by express command of the king Epis- 
copacy was tolerated in Massachusetts after 1660, 
the authorities there were wholly averse to the dis- 
cipline of the Church of England, and resisted every 
attempt to organize a congregation. Mason, of New 



* Petitions of Mary and Michael Tany, Tanner MSS., in Bod. 
Lib., 31, f. 137-139. 

^ Md. Hist. Soc, Fund Publications No. 36, p. 5. 
^ Miller, Description of New York, chap. iii. 



48 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

Hampshire fame, brought over Books of Comnxjn 
Prayer sent b}'" the bishop of London before 1682/ 
but an Episcopal church was not established in 
Boston until 1686. The colonists were fearful lest 
the Stuarts should force Episcopacy upon New 
England; but the fear was unfounded, and Epis- 
copacy made no progress in the Puritan colonies 
during the seventeenth century. Even Maine, 
which had begun as an Anglican settlement, was 
Congregationalized before 1692. 

At first all the Anglican churches in the colonies 
were under the charge of the archbishop of Canter- 
bury ; and a very important part of Clarendon's pol- 
icy after 1660 was his plan of making a bishopric of 
Virginia, and consolidating all the colonial churches 
under the authority, inspection, and jurisdiction 
of Archbishop Sheldon and his successors. About 
1666 a patent was drawn up constituting Virginia 
a bishopric and a diocese, and declaring all the 
churches in the Bahamas, Bermudas, Jamaica, and 
the other island and continental colonies — except 
New England — to be parts and members of the 
diocese of Virginia.^ Though this patent does not 
appear to have been acted on, the appointment of 
Alexander Murray, former companion of King 
Charles in his wanderings, and at this time in- 



* Letter from Boston (unsigned), December 11, 1682, Tan- 
ner MSS., in Bod. Lib., 35, f. 140- 

' Patent for the erection of Virginia into a bishopric, ibid., 
447, fE. 69-76. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 49 

cumbent of Ware parish in Virginia, to be bishop 
of that colony was seriously considered in 1673.* 

Jurisdiction over the colonial churches was soon 
after vested in the bishop of London, who, as a 
member of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, 
took frequent occasion to impress upon the com- 
mittee the needs of the church in America. But 
for many years to come the Episcopal jurisdiction 
amounted to little, and did not include the licens- 
ing of marriages, probation of wills, or induction of 
ministers. In Virginia, a commissary, representing 
the bishop, was sent over in 1689, but inasmuch as 
his authority was too limited to be of importance, 
he became little more than a special correspondent 
who sent letters to the bishop regarding the religious 
condition of the colony. 

In the north, Congregationalism, not Episcopacy, 
was established. Every town in New England had 
its Congregational church supported by taxation, 
and the larger communities and townships had two 
or more ecclesiastical societies. Connecticut had 
chiefly "large" Congregationalists, who accepted 
the Half-way Covenant, and a few "strict" Con- 
gregationalists, Presbyterians, and Quakers.^ Rhode 
Island had no state church, recognizing to the ut- 
most the right of ' ' soul liberty' ' and inviting all denom- 
inations to share its territory. Quakers and Baptists, 
however, predominated over other denominations. 

* Harleian MSS., in British Museum, 3790, flf. 1-4. 

* Conn. Col. Records, III., 297; Allen, History of Enfield, 



50 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

From New York to Pennsylvania a mixture of 
religious faiths appears. In the former, besides 
the Anglicans, were the Dutch Lutherans and 
Calvinists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and 
Jews.* In Albany all the colonists were Dutch 
Calvinists, in Long Island the majority were Con- 
gregationalists. There were many French Hugue- 
nots on Staten Island, but they had no church.^ 
In New Jersey there were mainly Congregational- 
ists, Lutherans, and Quakers. In West New Jersey 
there were several Quaker meetings and some 
Presbyterians and Baptists. In Philadelphia the 
Quakers, who were divided into two bodies by the 
apostasy of George Keith, controlled the govern- 
ment ; but the city contained also congregations of 
Swedish Lutherans, English Baptists, and Presby- 
terians. 

In the southern colonies were many nonconform- 
ists — Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics, 
Labadists (about a hundred, in Maryland), and 
Quakers, In North Carolina the Anglicans had done 
nothing to establish Episcopacy, and the colony was 
in control of the Quakers. Thus, in the main, the 
Church of England was the established church of 
the south, and Congregationalism was the estab- 
lished religious system of the north; while in the 
middle colonies there existed a mixture of religious 

» Miller, Description of New York, 37; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to 
Col. Hist., III., 262. 

2 Bankers and Sluyter, Journal, 142; Lodwick's Description. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE 51 

bodies, no one of which could claim superiority to 
the others in numbers or influence. 

The educational and intellectual life of the colo- 
nies was low. Public schools were common in New 
England, where the people, coming from the towns 
of old England, had high ideals of the value of 
education . Massachusetts and Connecticut provided 
schools for nearly every township. Plymouth and 
Rhode Island were more backward, and education 
made little progress in those colonies unti>the next 
century. 

In New York there seem to have been no schools 
at all — at least, no contemporary speaks of them, and 
Andros in his reply to the queries of the Lords of 
Trade says nothing of education. New Jersey had 
no schools until 1693,^ and Budd in his account of 
New Jersey and Pennsylvania urges the establish- 
ment of schools, and proposes that white men and 
Indians alike shall be educated, not only in liberal 
arts, but in manual training also.^ Ten years later 
Gabriel Thomas reported several good schools of 
learning in Pennsylvania, and we know that William 
Bradford introduced a printing-press there in 1685. 

Apparently Maryland had no schools of any kind. 
Berkeley's famous reply to the queries of 167 1 in- 
dicates the condition of Virginia at that date. 
"But I thank God," he says, "there are no free 
schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have 

> Whitehead, East Jersey, 159-174. 

2 Budd, Account of New Jersey and Pennyslvania, 43, 44. 



52 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

these hundred years, for learning has brought dis- 
obedience and heresy and sects into the world and 
printing has divulged [them] and libels against the 
best government. God keep us from both." * A 
few years later provision was made for schools 
and school - m^asters and for a system of licens- 
ing whereby the standard of teaching might be 
raised. The greater part of the colony, however, 
retained the old customs, in accordance with which 
every man instructed his children according to his 
ability. 

The only institution for higher education in 
1689 was Harvard College, founded in 1636 and 
incorporated in 1650. It was quartered in "a fair 
and comely edifice, having in it a spacious hall, and 
a large library with some books in it." ^ "Every 
scholar that on proofe is found able to read the 
Originals of the Old and New Testament into the 
Latin tongue, and to resolve them Logically, withall 
being of godly life and conversation; and at any 
publick Act hath the Approbation of the Overseers 
and Master of the Colledge, is fit to be dignified 
with his first degree." ^ Higher qualifications of 
a similar character admitted the student to the 
second degree. Mather, writing in 1691, said that 
the degree of master of arts was won after ' ' seven 

• Berkeley's Answers to Queries, MSS. in Public Record Office, 
Colonial Papers, XXVI., No. 77, i. (query 23). But cf. Tyler, 
England in America, chap. vi. 

* Bankers and Sluyter, Journal, 385. 

^ New England's First Fruits (1643), 16. 



1689] SOCIAL LIFE S3 

years standing, as 'tis in Oxford and Cambridge, . . . 
We never," he adds, " (more's pity) had any Drs." * 

Those who watched the college at its birth, who 
draughted the "Rules and Precepts that are ob- 
served in the Colledge," and who drew up the " Times 
and Order of their Studies, ' ' with ' * Chaldee at the 9th 
houre" and "Syriack at the loth houre," might 
have been scandalized had they read the account 
of Bankers and Sluyter, written after visiting the 
college in 1679. These men declared that they saw 
only ten students sitting around, smoking tobacco 
in a room which smelt like a tavern; that they 
tested these students in speaking Latin, with sad 
results; and that the library contained nothing 
in particular. The authorities of Harvard might 
have been equally scandalized had they known 
of the later career of Sir George Downing, who as 
Georgiiis Downingiis, in 1642, fulfilled in part the 
requirements of the first degree by defending 
successfully such ethical theses as these: Justitia 
mater omnium virtutum, Mentiri non potest qui 
verum dicit; Juveni modestia summum ornamentum. 

Except for theological writings in New England, 
and a few journals and descriptions of country and 
travel, the colonies developed little literature before 
1689. There were very few physicians and scarcely 
any lawyers, a strong prejudice against the latter 
existing everywhere. Letchford, in Massachustts, 

' Increase Mather to Anthony a Wood {.Tanner MSS., in 
Bod. Lib., 26, f. 48). 
5 



54 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1652 

had not been allowed to practise his profession and 
took his revenge by writing in his Plaine Dealing a 
scathing criticism of the colony's method of doing 
justice. Lawyers seem to have been allowed in 
East New Jersey ; ^ but the Quakers in Pennsylvania 
were bitterly opposed to law-suits in every form. 
Gabriel Thomas rejoiced that Pennsylvania did not 
need either the tongue of the lawyer or the pen of 
the physician, both, he says, being "equally de- 
structive of men's estates and lives." ^ Alsop, in 
Maryland, said that if the lawyer there had "noth- 
ing else to maintain him but his bawling, he might 
button up his chops and burn his buckram bag"; 
and Cook shows his opinion of lawyers when he 
speaks of them as breaking the peace and wrangling 
for plaintiff and defendant. The hostility for this 
class of professional men became in Virginia so 
marked as to lead to legislation against the practice 
of law.^ A few years later Colonel Byrd said that 
while there were a few men in the colony who called 
themselves doctors they were " generally discarded." 
As for North Carolina, a resident of Albemarle Coun- 
ty wrote to his father in England that " those who 
profess themselves doctors and attorneys are scan- 
dalous to their profession, impudence and notorious 
impertinence making up their character." 

' Whitehead, East Jersey, 166. 

">■ Thomas, Account of the Province of Pensilvania, 32. 

'Alsop, Character of the Province of Maryland, 47; Cook, 
Sot-Weed Factor, 12, 19; Hening, Statutes, I., 495, II., 71; Stowb 
MSS., in British Museum, 748, f. la; Sloane, 4040, f. 151. 



CHAPTER IV 

PROVINCIAL CULTURE 
(1690-1740) 

DURING the seventeenth century the pressure 
of material needs and the scattered character 
of the settlements prevented much development in 
the finer elements of civilization; and though New 
England showed a strongly idealistic spirit, her 
culture was narrowed by theological partisanship. 

At the close of the century these unfavorable con- 
ditions were gradually changing and there began a 
period of substantial progress in civilization. The 
older communities were emerging from the hard- 
ships of the pioneer period; they were coming to 
have leisure and taste for intellectual pursuits, and 
becoming ambitious of larger opportunities for their 
children. The improved communications between 
different colonies were giving to their higher life 
some real community of interest, by weakening 
local and sectarian prejudices. The development of 
mercantile interests also helped to bring the back- 
ward or one-sided life of the colonies into vital 
contact with the main currents of European prog- 
ress. In Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and 



S6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1600 

Charleston there were iiKiny men who had regular 
business connections with the Old World and from 
time to time found it necessary to cross the ocean. 

Much credit must also be given to the royal gov- 
ernors. Francis Nicholson, for instance, while gov- 
ernor in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, 
gave special attention to education, urging it upon 
the attention of his colonial assembly, and himself 
making contributions to the cause. When Yale 
College was founded, this zealous Anglican showed a 
surprising breadth of interest by contributing to its 
stock of books. So, too, his successor in Virginia, 
Governor Spotswood, was one of the chief patrons 
of William and Mary College.' 

In New York and Massachusetts, Governor Bur- 
net loft an enviable reputation as a man of scholarly 
and literary tastes. In New York he had among 
his political advisers a rather unusual group of in- 
tellectual men, and during his residence in Massa- 
chusetts he was understood to be a contributor of 
essays to the New Eji gland Weekly Journal. Gov- 
ernor Dudley, whate\-er his faults may have been, 
was a "gentleman and a scholar" who kept him- 
self in sympathy with the literary and scientific 
activities of his time." 

The Anglican church also exerted an important 
civilizing influence. The first two commissaries of 

* Mereness, Maryland, 137; McCrady, SoutJi Carolina unJci 
Royal Govcrnnicnt, 4S2; Trumbull, Conncciicui, II., 30. 
' Winsor, Memorial Hist, oj Boston, II., 400, 435. 



i74o] CULTURE 57 

the bishop of London, Blair in Virginia and Bray 
in Maryland, are almost as well known for their 
educational as for their religious activities. The 
Venerable Society emphasized the educational side 
of its missionary work, and in many southern 
parishes the Anglican lay reader was the first 
teacher. In New England also the Anglican clergy 
were an important intellectual force, helping their 
Puritan neighbors by the stimulus of competition 
and preparing the way for a more tolerant prac- 
tice.* 

Perhaps the finest gift of the English church to 
the life of New England was the mission of George 
Berkeley, who lived from 1729 to 1731 in the vicin- 
ity of Newport. Dean Berkeley was the highest 
ecclesiastical dignitary who had hitherto visited the 
colonies, and was known already as a brilliant 
scholar. As the founders of Massachusetts had 
hoped to build up a "bulwark against Anti-Christ," 
so Berkeley saw in the fresh and youthful life of the 
New World a refuge for Christian and Protestant 
civilization. He desired to establish an American 
college under Anglican auspices, but the project 
was not supported by the English government, and 
he returned to England much disappointed. 

Yet the time which Berkeley spent in Newport 
was not wasted. In a kindly way he used his in- 
fluence against the sectarian spirit of New England 

* Weeks, in U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1897, 
II., 1380-1383. 



SS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1691 

Puritanism, and his sympathies were not confined 
within his own communion. After his return to 
England he gave generously to Yale College, both 
in books and in land, and he also contributed some 
books to the library of Harvard College, Through 
the stimulus of his intercourse and example he 
strengthened the intellectual life of the little colony 
where he lived, and his influence can be traced also 
in the founding of King's College in New York, 
1754, under the leadership of his friend and disciple, 
Samuel Johnson.* 

During this period there was substantial progress 
in the founding and development of educational 
institutions, and in the south the most important 
event was the founding of William and Mary Col- 
lege. Some subscriptions for such a college had been 
taken in Berkeley's administration ; but little was 
accomplished until 1691, when the assembly sent 
commissary Blair to England with instructions to 
secure a charter, Blair appealed successfully to the 
queen and the king, and in 1693 came back with a 
royal charter, together with a substantial endow- 
ment from the royal revenues. From time to time 
this endowment was increased by grants from the 
assembly and by private gifts. ^ 

* Tyler, in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 510-540; 
Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New England, II., 546-548; 
Fraser, Life and Letters of Berkeley, II., chaps, iv., v. 

^ Cal. of State Pap., Col.. 1689-1602, pp. 300, 426, 452, 575, 
603; Adams, College of William and Mary, 11-17; Letters of 
Blair, in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 116-119. 



1729] CULTURE 59 

William and Mary College was thus founded un- 
der distinctly Anglican auspices and its close con- 
nection with the church continued throughout the 
colonial era. Commissary Blair himself was its 
first president, holding the office for fifty years ; its 
professors were generally clergymen in charge of 
neighboring parishes, and emphasis was constantly 
laid upon training for the service of the Anglican 
church. About the college there was subsequently 
built the capital town of Williamsburg, which, with 
its double attraction of the college and the seat of 
government, became a social centre of some impor- 
tance. The college itself passed through many vi- 
cissitudes; it was burned down in 1705, and, though 
soon restored, it was described about 1724 by one 
of its professors, the Reverend Hugh Jones, as "a 
college without a chapel, without a scholarship, and 
without a statute" having " a library without books 
comparatively speaking; and a president without a 
fixed salary till of late." In 1729 the faculty con- 
sisted of President Blair and six professors, includ- 
ing two in theology and two in the school of phi- 
losophy. Though its influence in the colonial era 
was hardly comparable with that of Harvard, in 
Massachusetts, it trained a large proportion of the 
men who were to play conspicuous parts in the 
struggle for independence.* 

' Adams, College of William and Mary, 17-27; Jones, Present 
State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 45, 83 et seq.; William and Mary 
Quarterly, VI., 176, 177. 



6o vSOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1695 

William and Mary was the only college in the 
south during the colonial era, and the demand for 
higher education had to be met by sending young 
men out of the colony either to England, or, occa- 
sionally, to one of the northern colleges. In the 
richer families an education over-seas was, there- 
fore, more common than in New England. 

In secondary and elementary education the south 
made some progress during the first half of the 
eighteenth century. A "grammar" school at Will- 
iamsburg gave preliminary training in Greek and 
Latin. In 1695 the Maryland assembly passed an 
act for one or more free schools in which Latin and 
Greek might be taught, but only one was established 
under its provisions, the King William's School at 
Annapolis. In 1763, Governor Sharpe declared that 
there was not in Maryland even one good grammar- 
school.* 

South Carolina during the earlier years of the 
eighteenth century passed a number of laws for the 
encouragement of education. In 171 1 the colony, 
with the co-operation of the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel, established a school in Charles- 
ton ; and a few were established elsewhere through 
bequests by individuals or through the efforts of 
societies.^ 

North Carolina was probably the most backward 

* Mereness, Maryland, 137-145. 

^ McCrady, South Carolina under Proprietary Government, 510, 
700; South Carolina under Royal Government, chap. xxv. 



1736] CULTURE 61 

of all the colonies, but even here a few schools were 
established during the first two decades of the 
eighteenth century, chiefly through the efforts of 
the Anglican church. The net results, however, 
were small, and in 1736 Governor Johnston reproach- 
ed the assembly with having "never yet taken the 
least care to erect one school, which deserves the 
name in this extended country."* 

None of the southern colonies had a genuine pub- 
lic-school system, but the deficiency in organized 
education was partly made up by private instruc- 
tion, which, in South Carolina especially, employed 
a considerable number of persons during the latter 
part of the provincial era. In that colony also some- 
thing was done for the poor by the rich through the 
institution of schools with free scholarships.^ 

Eight years after the incorporation of William and 
Mary College another institution for higher educa- 
tion was incorporated in Connecticut. Yale College, 
like its predecessors in Massachusetts and Virginia, 
was founded under strongly clerical influences, and 
was intended to be largely, though not exclusively, 
a training school for ministers. Most of its pro- 
moters were Harvard graduates ; but in Connecticut 
there was a demand for a college nearer home, while 
In Massachusetts many men felt that Harvard was 
drifting away from the orthodox standards. The 

'Weeks, in U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1897, 
II., 1380-1383; N. C. Col. Records, IV., 227. 

2 McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, chap. xxv. 



62 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1701 

act of 1 70 1 incorporating the new college provided 
for a board of trustees composed exclusively of 
ministers.^ 

For the next seventeen years the college led an 
extremely precarious existence. A part of the in- 
struction was given at Saybrook, but some of the 
students were provided for at various other places. 
Local jealousies made it difficult to fix a permanent 
seat for the college ; but in 1 7 1 6 the trustees agreed 
upon New Haven, and their decision was sanctioned 
by the general court. There was still some resist- 
ance, and in 1 7 1 8 rival commencements were held at 
Weathersfield and New Haven ; but by concessions to 
the disappointed towns the breach was soon healed. 
Meanwhile, donations were coming in from various 
quarters, Jeremiah Dummcr collected a number of 
books for the college from friends in England; but 
the most important benefactor was Elihu Yale, 
a native of Boston, who, after receiving his educa- 
tion in England, became a prosperous East Indian 
merchant, and governor for the East India Company 
at Madras. In 17 18, at the first New Haven com- 
mencement, the school was christened by its new 
name of Yale College, and in 17 19 Timothy Cutler 
was made resident rector or president of the college.^ 

The college seemed at last to be definitely estab- 
lished ; but it soon sustained a severe shock through 
the conversion of President Cutler to the principle 

'Papers by Dexter and Baldwin, in New Haven Colony Hist. 
See, Papers, III., 1-32, 405-442. ' Dexter, Ibid., 227-248. 



1746] CULTURE 63 

of episcopal ordination. The trustees, however, 
proved equal to the occasion; Cutler was promptly 
deposed and a drastic rule was adopted excluding 
from the government of the college any one who 
might be tainted with " Arminian and Prelatical Cor- 
ruptions." Yale College was thus more carefully 
forearmed against heresy than Harvard had ever 
been. Cutler's successors, Williams and Clap, both 
proved efficient administrators and safe theologians, 
and the college became prosperous and influential. 
Yale was the academic headquarters of thorough- 
going Calvinism both for New England and the 
middle colonies; and it trained the two great Cal- 
vinistic teachers of the period, Jonathan Dickinson 
and Jonathan Edwards, who became later the first 
two presidents of the college of New Jersey. Some 
of the secular leaders of the middle colonies were 
also educated at Yale, including such New-Yorkers 
as William Smith the historian and William Liv- 
ingston the politician and later revolutionary 
leader.^ 

The enthusiasm of Cotton Mather and his friends 
for Yale was largely due to their consciousness of 
waning influence at Harvard, where there had long 
been a vigorous contest between liberals and con- 
servatives for the control of the college. The 
Mathers desired a new charter in place of the old 
one of 1650, which should secure the doctrinal 

'Trumbull, Hist, of Connecticut, II., 22 et seq.; Clap, Annals 
or History of Yale College; Talcott Papers, I., 6, «., 58. 



64 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1707 

orthodoxy of the college. No act, however, which 
the colonists could agree upon, was acceptable to 
the crown or its agent the governor; until in 1707 
the difficulty was solved by a short resolution de- 
claring the old charter to be still in force. 

The more liberal element in the church was 
gradually increasing its representation in the cor- 
poration, and in 1707, with the help of Governor 
Dudley, they elected John Leverett as president. 
In 17 17 the Mather influence suffered another se- 
vere check when two more ministers of the liberal 
school were elected to the corporation. In 1722 
the conservatives were strong enough to get through 
the general court a vote which, by adding the resi- 
dent tutors to the corporation, would have elimi- 
nated the objectionable new members, but this 
project was blocked by Governor Shute.^ 

These controversies between ecclesiastical fac- 
tions, though petty enough in themselves, are his- 
torically significant because they involve the impor- 
tant issue of academic freedom against ecclesiastical 
control ; and because the victory of the liberals made 
the college for the future one of the strong human- 
izing forces in New England life. In other ways, 
also, this was a period of educational progress for 
Harvard. In 1721 and 1727 the London merchant, 
Thomas Hollis, established the first two professor- 
ships at the college, one in divinity and one in nat- 

* Quincy, Harvard University, L, chaps, iv.-xiv,, passim, and 
App. 



1756] CULTURE 65 

ural philosophy. The latter chair was assigned, in 
1738, to John Winthrop, a young graduate who dur- 
ing forty years of service was to be one of the best 
representatives in America of the scholar's life.^ 

Educational progress came more slowly in the 
middle colonies. The Quakers of Pennsylvania be- 
lieved thoroughly in elementary education, but they 
cared little for the higher learning, partly because 
they had no clergy requiring special teaching. The 
first college in Pennsylvania was not founded until 
1755, and then the chief mover in the enterprise 
was Benjamin Franklin, a transplanted New-Eng- 
lander. Perhaps the most important Pennsylvania 
school founded before that time was the one es- 
tablished at Philadelphia in 1697 and subsequently 
known as the William Penn Charter School.^ 

In New York the presence of two distinct nation- 
alities interfered seriously with educational prog- 
ress, and, though there were schools in the province, 
they had a poor reputation. William Smith the 
historian, himself a native and prominent citizen of 
the province, wrote in 1756 that the schools were 
"in the lowest order." ^ 

In New Jersey a law authorizing towns to levy 
taxes for the support of public schools was passed 
as early as 1693, and during the next half -century 



^ Qnincy, Harvard University, I., 232-241, 398, 399, II., 25-27. 
' Cf . Sharp less, Quaker Experiment in Government (ed. of 1902) , 
I., 35 et seq. 

^ Smith, Hist, of New York (ed. of 1756), 229. 



66 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1693 

a considerable number of schools were actually es- 
tablished. The educational leadership in New Jer- 
sey came largely from the Presbyterian church, 
which had gathered to itself not merely the original 
Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish stock, but their fel- 
low-Calvinists from New England, Holland, and 
Germany. Largely through the efforts of Pres- 
byterian ministers, the first charter of the College 
of New Jersey was granted in 1746, three of the four 
principal ministerial promoters being graduates of 
Yale, and one of Harvard. A year later, another 
Harvard graduate, Jonathan Belcher, became gov- 
ernor of New Jersey, and through his efforts a new 
charter was granted, which placed the college upon 
a secure foundation. Thus the higher education of 
the middle colonies was in large measure the prod- 
uct of New England training.* No other college 
was founded in the middle region before 1750, but 
the subject was already attracting attention, and 
the next decade saw the founding of Columbia 
College under Anglican auspices at New York, and of 
the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, the 
freest from ecclesiastical control of all the colonial 
colleges. 

An important evidence of a developing civiliza- 
tion is the accumulation of private and public 
libraries. In the endowment of the early American 
colleges, notably of Harvard and Yale, donations 

* De Witt, in Murray, Hist, of Education in N. J. (U. S. 
Bureau of Education, No. i.), chap. ix. 



1746] CULTURE 67 

of books had played an important part. Gradual- 
ly there developed in New England such consider- 
able private collections as those of the Mathers and 
Thomas Prince. In the south the best - known 
private collection was that of Westover, in Vir- 
ginia, which, when sold in 1778, numbered nearly 
four thousand volumes, collected largely by William 
Byrd, the contemporary of Governor Spotswood, 
and showing broad literary and scientific interests.^ 

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, 
Reverend Thomas Bray collected and sent to various 
places in America small libraries, made up largely, 
but not wholly, of theological literature. Most of 
these were in Maryland, but one of the most im- 
portant was in Charleston, South Carolina, and there 
were three in New England. About 1729 the So- 
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel sent to 
New York a library of one thousand volumes for 
the use of the neighboring clergy. Generally speak- 
ing, little was done by the colonists to develop these 
collections, but in 1698 the South Carolina assem- 
bly appropriated money for the support of the li- 
brary in Charleston, for which the distinction has 
been claimed of being the first public library in 
America.^ 

Of more importance as an indication of colonial 



* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, p. Ixxxii., and App. 

^ Steiner, in Am. Hist. Review, II., 59-75; Smith, Mew York 
(ed. of 1792), 213; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Gov- 
ernment, 508. 



68 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1704 

initiative in this field was the public subscription 
library in Philadelphia founded by Franklin in 
1 731 and incorporated in 1742. Franklin tells us 
that "The institution soon manifested its utility, 
was imitated by other towns, and in other prov- 
inces . . . reading became fashionable; and our 
people, having no publick amusements to divert 
their attention from study, became better acquaint- 
ed with books, and in a few years were observ'd 
by strangers to be better instructed and more in- 
telligent than people of the same rank generally 
are in other countries." A somewhat similar move- 
ment resulted in the formation of the Charleston 
Library Society in 1743.' 

The development of journalism is one of the most 
important social facts of this provincial era. At 
the close of the seventeenth century there was not 
a single newspaper published in North America, and 
even after the founding of the Boston News Letter, 
in 1704, fifteen years passed before it had any rival 
on the continent. During the next two decades, 
however, newspapers were established in Rhode 
Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and South Carolina. These were generally 
weekly publications, very imperfect in their reports 
of American news, giving considerable space to Eng- 
lish court life and parliamentary procedure and to 
scientific or literary essays. Though often cautious 

* Franklin, U'ori-^ (Bigelow's ed.) , I., 167-170; McCrady, South 
Carolina under Royal Goi'cr)imcnt, 510-512. 



1743] CULTURE 69 

about the expression of editorial views, they be- 
came important agencies of political controversy, 
and furnish to-day valuable sources of information 
upon numerous aspects of provincial politics/ 

During the first half of the eighteenth century 
Boston was the chief journalistic centre in the colo- 
nies, and in 1735 there were five newspapers simul- 
taneously published in the town. There Franklin 
began his career as printer and journalist by assist- 
ing his brother in the publication of the New Eng- 
land Courant. Papers of a much higher order were 
the New England Weekly Journal and the Weekly 
Rehearsal, afterwards continued in the Boston Weekly 
Post, which had distinctly literary aims and received 
contributions from leading ministers and laymen,^ 

During the seventeenth century the clergy were 
almost the only educated professional men in 
America. Lawyers were few and were regarded 
with suspicion, and there were few thoroughly train- 
ed physicians. During the next half-century there 
was a decided advance in all of these professions. 
The development of the Anglican church brought 
into the middle and southern colonies a few clergy- 
men like Blair in Virginia and Garden in South 
Carolina, who had shared in the best educational 
opportunities of their time and yet were ready to 
spend their lives in the New World. 

^Thomas, Hist, of Printing (Am. Antiq. Soc, Collections, VI.), 
II., 7-204, passim. 

^Goddard, in Winsor, Memorial Hist, of Boston, II., chap, xv, 
6 



70 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1690 

In New England the clergy lost ground relative- 
ly, but their best men began to show a broader 
spirit. At the beginning of this era the represent- 
ative men were the two Mathers, especially Cotton 
Mather, who, though a man of great learning, felt 
it to be one of his chief functions to check the rising 
tide of innovation. With all his voluminous pub- 
lications, he lacked the scholar's critical instinct. 
The men who succeeded him differed from him not 
so much in their formal statements of doctrine as in 
their more tolerant temper. Such a man was Ben- 
jamin Colman, one of the liberals whose influence in 
Harvard College was so much dreaded by Cotton 
Mather. "There are some practices and princi- 
ples," he said, "that look Catholic, which though I 
cannot reason myself into, yet I bear a secret rev- 
erence to in others, and dare not for the world speak 
a word against. Their souls look enlarged to me; 
and mine does so the more to myself, for not daring 
to judge them." Yet Colman had misgivings about 
Yale College accepting Berkeley's generous gift of 
books.* 

The most scholarly Puritan minister of the next 
generation was Thomas Prince, a graduate of Har- 
vard in 1707, and for forty years pastor of the South 
Church in Boston. Prince found time to build up 
a large library and to write his scholarly though 
fragmentary Chronological History of New England. 

' Tyler , Hist, of Am. Literature (ed.of 1879), II., 1 71-175; Tyler, 
in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 537. 



1756] CULTURE 71 

In his dedication he enunciated principles of 
scholarship strikingly different from those of the 
Magnalia Christi. "I would not," he said, "take 
the least iota upon trust, if possible," and " I cite 
my vouchers to every passage." ^ 

The progress of the medical profession was com- 
paratively slow. One of the best-known and in some 
respects most intelligent of American physicians dur- 
ing this period was William Douglass, the author of 
an entertaining but not quite trustworthy historical 
and descriptive account of the colonies. Strangely 
enough, the sceptical Douglass opposed inoculation 
as a protection against small - pox, while Cotton 
Mather defended it. William Smith gave a gloomy 
view of physicians in New York about the middle 
of the eighteenth century, declaring that there were 
few really skilful ones, while " quacks abound like 
locusts in Egypt." South Carolina had a few physi- 
cians who showed not only practical skill but some 
capacity for scientific research.^ 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century law- 
yers were so few that even the most important 
judicial positions were often filled by men with- 
out specific legal training. This was true in the 
southern and middle colonies as well as in New 
England. In South Carolina, for instance, the first 
professional lawyer of whom there seems to be any 

* Quoted in Tyler, Hist, of Am. Literature, II., 145 et seq. 
^ Smith, New York (ed. of 1792), 230; McCrady, South Caro- 
lina under Royal Government, chap. xxii. 



72 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1698 

definite record was Nicholas Trott, who came to the 
province in 1698. 

During the next fifty years there was a steadily 
increasing number of trained lawyers, many of 
whom, especially in the southern and middle colo- 
nies, had learned their profession in England. The 
political leadership of the lawyers may be illus- 
trated by such names as those of Charles Pinckney 
in South Carolina, Daniel Dulany the elder, in 
Maryland, and Andrew Hamilton in Pennsylvania, 
all professional lawyers and all leaders in their re- 
spective assemblies. Even Massachusetts, where 
the common-law traditions were weakest, was pro- 
ducing some strong lawyers; among them John 
Read, the leader among his contemporaries in the 
profession; Paul Dudley, a student at the Temple 
in London and afterwards attorney - general and 
chief -justice of his native province; and Jeremiah 
Gridley, who seems to have been a sort of mentor 
for the younger lawyers of the revolutionary era.* 

There are many evidences of increased refinement 
and of genuine intellectual interests. It has been 
said that the New-Englanders of the early eighteenth 
century show little appreciation of the contemporary 
literary movement in England; and it is true, for 
instance, that the Harvard College library contained 
few of the memorable books of the age of Anne. 
Nevertheless, Franklin while a boy in Boston un- 
dertook to form his style on the Spectator, and the 

* Washburn, Judicial Hist, of Mass., 207-209, 211, 283-287. 



1743] CULTURE 73 

newspaper essays of the period show clearly the 
influence of Addison and Steele.* 

A wide-spread interest in natural science corre- 
sponded to the contemporary tendency of English 
thought ; even Cotton Mather was interested in these 
studies, as were his contemporaries Joseph and Paul 
Dudley. Many Americans of that time were mem- 
bers of the Royal Society of London or contributors 
to its transactions, including the Winthrops and 
Paul Dudley in Massachusetts, William Byrd in 
Virginia, and the physician Lining of South Car- 
olina. In Philadelphia the Quaker John Bartram 
won a European reputation as a naturalist; and 
there Franklin, in 1743, issued his appeal for the 
formation of an American philosophical society to 
stimulate and organize research.^ 

In some of the provincial towns there were con- 
siderable groups of cultivated people. With in- 
creasing wealth came a development of the aesthetic 
side of life, especially in domestic architecture and 
the furnishing of the house. The artist Smibert, 
who came to New England with Berkeley, left some 
portraits of representative provincial personages, 
which, like the later ones by Copley, indicate refined 
and comfortable standards of life. 

Hugh Jones thought that while his Virginian 
friends were not much disposed " to dive into books," 

> Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I, 47; Goddard, in Winsor, 
Memorial Hist, of Boston, II., chap. xv. 
' Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 480. 



74 SOCIAL AND ECONOIMIC FORCES [1724 

their " quick apprehension " gave them a " Sufficien- 
cy of Knowledge and Fluency of Tongue." During 
the second quarter of the eighteenth century the 
genteel public of Charleston was listening to lectures 
on natural science, paying good prices at the thea- 
tre to see such plays as Addison's tragedy of " Cato," 
and observing St. Cecilia's day by a concert of vo- 
cal and instrumental music. William Smith, writ- 
ing of New York, gives the impression, confirmed 
by later writers, of a community which had some 
of the social graces, but was not very intellectual.* 

Boston was thought by the Anglican clergyman, 
Bumaby, in 1760, to be "undeniably forwarder in 
the arts" than either Pennsylvania or New York. 
He considered their public buildings "more ele- 
gant" and observed " a more general turn for music, 
painting, and the belles lettres." The strict obser- 
vance of Sunday was still a subject of comment by 
visitors, and the theatre was under the ban, but 
otherwise the Puritan discipline was much relaxed. 
Smith thought his own people of New York " not so 
gay as our neighbors at Boston," and in 1740 the 
Boston ladies were reported as indulging "every 
little piece of gentility to the height of the mode."^ 

In Boston and New York, as well as in Annapolis, 

* Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 44; McCrady, 
South Carolina under Royal Government, 4Q2, 526-528. 

- Smith, New York (ed. of 1792), 229; Bumaby, Travels 
(Pinkerton, Voyages, XIII.), 730, 738. 747; cf. Hart, Contem- 
poraries, II., chaps, xii., xiv.; Winsor, Memorial Hist, of Boston, 
II., chap. x\"i. 



1760] CULTURE 75 

Williamsburg, and Charleston, English models were 
closely followed in dress and social practices, though 
it was observed in New York that the London fash- 
ions were adopted in America just as they were go- 
ing out of use in England.* 

Provincial society was growing richer, freer, more 
cosmopolitan in the eighteenth century, but it was 
felt by many to be losing in ethical and religious 
vigor. Significant as a protest against the pre- 
vailing tendencies of the time was the religious re- 
vival which had for its chief preachers Jonathan 
Edwards and George White field. The " Great Awak- 
ening" may be said to have begun in 1734 with 
the revival in Edwards's Church at Northampton, 
in western Massachusetts. A short period of com- 
parative inaction followed, but in 1739 the smoul- 
dering fire was fanned into flame by the passionate 
eloquence of Whitefield. The new revival spread 
through the southern and middle colonies and pro- 
duced a powerful impression upon nearly all classes. 
Even the unemotional Franklin found it hard at 
times to resist the spell of Whitefield 's oratory. 

Gradually, however, the inevitable reaction came ; 
for the movement was unwelcome not only to those 
who were tinged with the new secular spirit, but 
also to many who stood for the old ecclesiastical 
order. Thus Whitefield found among his antagonists 
the Anglican commissary Garden, of South Caro- 

' Journal and Letters of Eliza Lucas, 6,17; Jones, Present State 
of Virginia (ed. of 1S65), 31. 



76 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1703 

lina, many of the leading Puritan ministers of New 
England, and the faculties of Yale and Harvard.* 
By 1745 the "Great Awakening" had largely spent 
its force, and to-day men question whether it really 
helped or harmed the cause of morals and true re- 
ligion. Many of its leaders were men of no great 
significance in American life ; and even Whitefield 
was not a man of commanding intellect or char- 
acter. 

One of these men cannot be so easily dismissed. 
Jonathan Edwards was not only a preacher of ex- 
traordinary power, trying to bring back his people 
to the hard but virile Calvinism from which they 
were gradually drifting, but perhaps the keenest 
and most original thinker America has ever pro- 
duced. A graduate of Yale College at a time when 
it seemed on the verge of disintegration, he spent 
nearly all his life as the pastor of a small country 
town. Yet the great Scotch metaphysician, Stew- 
art, said of him that in "logical acuteness and sub- 
tilty" he was not inferior "to any disputant bred 
in the universities of Europe"; and the German 
scholar, Immanuel Fichte, nearly a century after 
Edwards's death, expressed his admiration for the 
contributions to ethical theory made by this "soli- 
tary thinker of North America."^ 

This preacher and metaphysician was also a gen- 

' Palfrey, New England, V., 1-41. 

' Fisher, " The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards," in North 
American Review, CXXVIIl., 2S4-303. 



1743] CULTURE 77 

uine poet. Like Dante, he used his imaginative 
power in depicting the terrors of the world to come 
for those who died unsaved, but he was also finely 
sensitive to beauty in nature and in the world of 
spirit. His record of his early spiritual experience 
contains many passages of exquisite beauty. In 
one of them he describes " the soul of a true Chris- 
tian" as resembling "such a little white flower as 
we see in the spring of the year ; low and humble on 
the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleas- 
ant beams of the sun's glory, rejoicing, as it were, in 
a calm rapture ; diffusing around a sweet f ragrancy ; 
standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of 
other flowers round about; all in like manner open- 
ing their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun." *■ 

Edwards was born in 1703 and Franklin in 1706, 
both before the close of the first century of English 
colonization. The two men were alike in the keen- 
ness and range of their intellectual interests, and 
alike also in a reputation transcending the limits of 
the provincial communities in which they lived. 
In other respects they were as opposite as the poles. 
In sharp contrast to Franklin, with his worldly wis- 
dom, his unemotional temper, and his matter-of- 
fact philanthropy, stands the great idealist Edwards, 
who in his writings and his life probably approached 
more nearly than any American before or since his 
time the highest levels of the human spirit. 

In 1743, while Edwards was absorbed in the 

' Edwards, Works (Dwight's ed.), L, Ivi, 



78 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1743 

problems of the Great Awakening, Franklin wrote 
his Proposal for Promoting Useful Knoivledgc among 
the British Plantations in America,^ in which he 
urged that, " the first drudgery of settling new colo- 
nies " being "pretty well over," Americans might 
do their part in scientific and philosophical inquiry. 
Certainly his own achievements and those of Ed- 
wards might well have encouraged such a hope. 

From these studies, however, Franklin himself was 
soon diverted by new and perplexing political prob- 
lems. Already the final struggle was coming on 
for the mastery of the continent. Already, too, 
there lay beneath the obscure questions of provin- 
cial politics deeper issues which were to estrange the 
colonies from the mother-country and force upon 
them the great problems of government for a new 
nation. Thus politics rather than speculation be- 
came the absorbing interest of the next generation, 
which saw the end of the provincial era. 

1 Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 480 



CHAPTER V 

THE PEOPLE OF NEW FRANCE 
(1750) 

BEFORE entering upon the story of the last and 
fateful struggle between France and England 
for the mastery of the North American continent, 
it will be helpful briefly to study the people of the 
warring colonies; for the contest was not only 
national, it was largely a measuring of strength be- 
tween social and political systems fundamentally 
opposed to each other and unable permanently 
to exist as neighbors. 

The climate of Canada was not as well adapted 
to the purposes of seventeenth-century colonization 
as that wherein the English colonies had been 
planted. In our day of superior agricultural knowl- 
edge, methods, and utensils, a new colony might 
soon acquaint itself with the climate and soil condi- 
tions of the lower St. Lawrence, and by mastering 
the production problem become self - supporting. 
In the period of New France, however, even the 
most favorably situated European plantations in 
America had for several seasons practically to be 
maintained from the mother-land, and starvation was 



So SOCL\L AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1689 

often imminent in the midst of abundant natural re- 
sources which the settlers knew not how to utilize. 
The English colonists, soon left by their govern- 
ment largely to sliift for themselves, were forced to 
star\"e or to dig, and after some bitter experiences 
in due time found themselves ; but to New France the 
harsh climate and stubborn soil of the north were 
more serious obstacles, which her people, paternally 
nurtured, and thus lacking initiative, were long in 
overcoming. 

While in many ways the situation of Quebec was 
a source of strength,* time came when there were 
seen to be certain disadvantages in centring the 
colony at such distance from the sea-coast. The 
entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence is so far north- 
ward that storms and ice-floes endanger navigation 
during half the year. Colonial possessions over-seas 
cannot successfully be maintained imless the mother- 
country possesses the means of easy and frequent 
communication with them ; and their importance to 
the latter is largely dependent on their value as 
naval bases. With the loss of New^oimdland, Cape 
Breton, and Acadia, France was left with slight 
hold upon the North American coast; the St. 
Lawrence afforded her but a slender naval base 
compared with the fine shore dominated by the 
English colonies to the south. 

The fisheries of New France were important; al- 
though, quite unHke the New-Englanders, perhaps 
* See chap, i., above. 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 8i 

most of the deep-sea fishers required government 
assistance. Characteristically unwilling to leave 
their homes for inhospitable foreign shores, it was 
foimd necessary artificially to stimulate the indus- 
try/ and many harsh measures seemed essential, to 
make the situation unpleasant for English poachers ; 
yet the latter were often able clandestinely to sell 
their cargoes to the enterprising French.^ Some- 
times Frenchmen, however, would put in their nets 
as far south as Cape Cod; and conflicts between 
rival fishing fleets were not infrequent incidents, 
tending to keep alive the long-smouldering sparks of 
racial hostility.' 

The fur -trade was the most important of the 
French colonial interests, and practically a govern- 
ment monopoly. The great river flowing past their 
doors, which drained an immense and unknown area 
of forested wilderness, peopled with strange tribes 
of wild men, fired the imagination of the men of 
New France. In an age of exploration, and them- 
selves among the most inquisitive and adventurous 
people of Europe, Frenchmen — led by Champlain 
himself, who had the wanderlust within his veins — 
pushed their way in birch canoes up the St. Law- 
rence and its great affluents, the Saguenay, the 
Ottawa, the Richelieu, and their wide-stretching 
drainage systems. Soon they discovered, in the 

'Marmette.in Canadian Archives, 1888, cxxxvii. 

2 Bourinot, Cape Breton, 31; Murdoch, Nova Scotia, 430. 

' Parkman, Half-Century of Conflict, 1., 106-108. 



82 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

heart of the continent, the interlocking systems 
of the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Winnipeg, and the 
Saskatchewan; and these led them still farther and 
farther afield through endless chains and ramifica- 
tions of glistening waterways. 

Eastern Canada was not rich in peltries; the 
growing wariness of the wild animals soon led both 
white and savage hunters ever westward, into the 
darkest recesses of the wilderness, where were 
abiindantly found the finest furs yet seen by 
Europeans. The up-stream movement of trade and 
settlement was amazingly rapid. We have seen 
that it was not long before New France held all the 
wild interior between the Rockies and the Alle- 
ghanies, and the Saskatchewan and New Orleans, 
with a thin line of small, fur- trade stockades and 
the Jesuit missions which formed so important an 
element in her plan of conquest. North of New 
York and New England, the international boundary 
was much as it is to-day, save for Acadia, which was 
still undefined and but nominally under British rule. 

But though New France had soon spread am- 
bitiously throughout the heart of the continent, in 
sharp distinction to the compact and slowly ex- 
panding growth of the English colonies, her re- 
sources and her population were far inferior. From 
the first, the court at Versailles made strenuous 
efforts to people the colony. The early commercial 
monopolies, which dominated New France imtil it 
was made a royal province in 1663, were under 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 83 

bonds to induce migration thither.* Unlike the 
English, however, the French have never been fond 
of colonizing. A complete satisfaction with home 
conditions, rendering them unwilling to look abroad, 
is even in our day deprecated by many wise French- 
men as a serious national weakness. Bounties to 
immigrants, importation of unmarried women to 
wed the superabundant bachelors, ostracism for the 
unmarried of either sex, official rewards for large 
families — all these measures were freely and per- 
sistently adopted by the French colonial officials. 
And yet, after nearly a century and a half, but 
eighty thousand whites constituted the semi-depen- 
dent and unprogressive population of Canada and 
Louisiana, over a stretch of territory above two 
thousand miles in length, against the million and a 
quarter of self-supporting English colonists, who for 
the most part were, from Georgia to New Hampshire, 
massed on the narrow coast between the Appala- 
chians and the sea. 

The government of New France was that of an 
autocracy, continually subject to direction from 
Versailles, where a fickle-minded monarch and a 
corrupt court played fast and loose with their often 
misguided colony.^ The colony was governed quite 

* Biggar, Early Trading Companies of New France, 95, 115, 
136. 

^ For general survey, see Garneau, Canada (Bell's trans.), I-, 
book III., chap, iii.; Parkman, Old Regime, chap. :x.vi.; Bourinot, 
in Const. Hist, of Canada, 7-1 1, and "Local Government in 
Canada," in Johns Hopkins University Studies, V., 10-20. 



84 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

similarly to a province in France. The governor, 
generally both a soldier as well as a statesman, and 
as a rule carefully selected, was in control of both 
the civil and military administration — although we 
shall see that a military commander was sometimes 
introduced as a coadjutor — and reported directly to 
his sovereign. With the governor were associated 
the intendant and the bishop ; the former a legal and 
financial officer intrusted with the public expendi- 
tures, exercising certain judicial functions, presiding 
over the council, and confidentially reporting to the 
king, being regarded as a check upon the governor, 
with whom his relations were, as a matter of course, 
often strained. The bishop saw to it that the in- 
terests of the church were constantly considered, 
and had a large body of supporters in the parish 
priests, who on their part exercised a powerful local 
influence. 

These three autocrats, who were the actual rulers, 
save when interfered with from Versailles, had as- 
sociated with them a body of resident councillors — 
at first five, later twelve — appointed by the crown, 
usually for life, upon the nomination of the governor 
and intendant. The three chief officials, who of 
course dominated the body, united with these men 
in forming the superior council, which exercised 
executive, legislative, and judicial powers, the only 
appeal from their decisions being to the home govern- 
ment. There were local governors at Montreal and 
Three Rivers, with but Httle authority or dignity, 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 85 

for even warrants for fines and imprisonments must 
be issued from Quebec; and subordinate courts, es- 
tablished by an attorney-general who was stationed 
at the capital, were to be found at all important 
v'"'.lages. The officers of justice were appointed 
without regard to their legal qualifications, being 
chosen by favor from among the military men or 
the prominent inhabitants. 

Local government was absolutely unknown. No 
public meetings for any purpose whatsoever, even 
to discuss the pettiest affairs of the parish or the 
market, were permitted unless special license be 
granted by the intendant, a document seldom even 
applied for. "Not merely was [the Canadian col- 
onist] allowed no voice in the government of his 
Province, or the choice of his rulers, but he was not 
even permitted to associate with his neighbors for 
the regulation of those municipal affairs which the 
central authority neglected under the pretext of 
managing." ^ Absolutism and centralization could 
not have been more securely intrenched. 

In order that nothing might be lacking in this 
autocratic system, there was created by Richelieu, 
in the charter of the Hundred Associates (1627), an 
order of nobility. None was needed in so raw a 
colony, where poverty was the rule, and democ- 
racy more nearly fitted the needs of the situation ; 

' Earl of Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North Amer- 
ica (January 31, 1839), 16. See also Parkman, Old Regime, 280, 
281. 
7 



86 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

but the French could not then conceive of a state 
of society without its noblesse, therefore one was 
artificially produced.* Many of the military olTiccrs 
who came out with their regiments belonged to the 
minor noblesse of France; and, as an inducement 
to stay in New France when their terms expired, 
they were given as seigniories large tracts of land 
along the river and lake fronts. Sometimes the 
seigniories were uninhabited save by Indians and 
wild animals; while upon others were peasants 
{habitants), whose log-houses, whitewashed and dor- 
mer-windowed, lined the common highway perhaps 
a half-mile back from the water's edge, down to 
which sloped the fields of the seignior's tenants^ 
narrow, ribbon-like strips, generally somewhat less 
than eight hundred feet wide, for these light-hearted 
people were gregarious and loved to be near their 
neighbors both on the highway and the waterway. 
Beyond the roixd the strips, while sometimes speci- 
fied in the grants as being ten times their width (or 
nearly a mile and a half long), by custom continued as 
far back into the hinterland as proved convenient for 
pasturage or for crude agriculture.^ Villages of this 
attenuated character often stretched for miles along 
the shore — densely for a mile or so on either side of a 
parish church, and then thinning out in the midway 



' Paikman, OU Rcf^intc, chap. xv. 

' Tlie usual i^jant was four arpents frontage on the water by 
ten arpents deep, the arpent beinj^ equivalent to one hundred 
and ninety-two EngUsh Unear feet. 



1 7 sol CANADIAN PEOPLE 87 

spaces. The traveller of to-day sees upon the lower 
St. Lawrence, on the Saguenay, and in picturesque 
Gasp6, many scores of communities of this sort, 
survivals of the French regime. 

Now and then a seignior was comparatively pros- 
perous, as when given a district with fishing rights, 
assuring him toll upon his tenants' catch; V)ut the 
lord was often quite as poor as his habitants, 
and continually subject to arbitrary official inter- 
ference of every sort, even as to agreements between 
him.self and his tenants (censitaires) . Unless the 
seignior cleared his land within a stated time it 
was forfeited; and when he sold it a fifth of the 
price obtained was due, although not always paid, 
to his feudal superior. The rents obtainable from 
his tenants were generally in kind, and apt to be 
trifling — from four to sixteen francs annually for 
an ordinary holding. On his part, the tenant was 
supposed to patronize his seignior's grist-mill, to 
bake his bread (for a consideration) in the seigniorial 
oven, to do manual labor for him during a few days 
each year, and for the privilege of fishing before 
his own door to present the seignior with one fish 
in every eleven. But these duties were more nominal 
than real, and often the tenant's obligation was 
satisfied upon the annual performance of some petty 
act of ceremony — thus did they with serious aspect 
play at feudalism and satisfy the pride of the 
lords of the manor. But the seignior had no more 
voice in public affairs than his tenant — ^both were 



8S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

equally ignored, save when some powerful rustic 
lord won recognition sufficient to secure his ap- 
pointment to the council. He might not work 
at a trade, yet occasionally there were seigniors 
who tilled their own soil and whose wives and 
daughters labored by their side; and there are in- 
stances where these threadbare noblemen, chancing 
to be in favor, were actually provisioned by the 
king/ 

Unable otherwise to exist, the nobleman generally 
took kindly to the fur-trade, which meant a roving 
life, wherein much gayety was mingled with the 
roughest sort of adventure. When unable or un- 
willing to secure a government license, he became 
a coureur de hois, or illegal trader, a practice sub- 
jecting him to the penalty of outlawry; but the 
extreme punishment was seldom meted out. These 
gentlemen wanderers were of hardy stock, took 
kindly to the wild, uncouth life of the forest, read- 
ily fraternized with the savages, whose dress and 
manners they often affected, and, seldom possessing 
refined sentiments, frequently led Indian war-parties 
in bloody forays upon the frontiers of the detested 
English — disguised by grease - paint, breech - clout, 
and feathers, and outdoing their followers in cruelty. 
Each was an experienced partisan leader, with a 
small body of devoted retainers, who propelled his 
boats, kept his camp, defended his property and 
person, rallied around him on his raids, and were 

' Parkman, Old Regime, 257-260. 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE !. 89 

as solicitous as he himself of the dignity of his 
caste. ^ 

A full third of the population was engaged in the 
fur -trade. From it the peasants, boatmen {voy- 
agcurs), trading-post clerks, and trappers won but 
the barest subsistence; many of the seigniors made 
heavy gains, although others, of an extremely ad- 
venturous type, like La Salle and Verendrye, were 
swamped by the enormous expenses of the exploring 
expeditions which they undertook in the effort both 
to extend their own fields of operation and the 
sphere of French influence. The military officers at 
the wilderness outposts dabbled largely in this com- 
merce; indeed, many of them, like Verendrye, were 
given the trade monopoly of a considerable district 
as their only compensation. There are numerous 
instances of such officials amassing comfortable fort- 
unes for that day, and retiring to France to spend 
them; although often their fur-trade, legitimate or 
illegitimate, was less responsible for such results than 
the peculation in which nearly all of them were en- 
gaged. 

For corruption, especially during the closing years, 
was rampant throughout New France. The govern- 
or and ecclesiastics were seldom under the ban of 
suspicion; but the intendant was quite apt to be a 
rare rascal, and from him down to the commandant 
of the most far-away stockade extended a graded, 

' Lahontan, Voyages, gives graphic pictures of the life of the 
colonial noblesse. 



90 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

well-organized system, whereby public moneys and 
supplies from France were unconscionably preyed 
upon. Not even was the bench free from this stain. 
It was said of a certain judge of the admiralty, who 
was also judge of the inferior court of justice on 
Cape Breton: "This magistrate and the others of 
subordinate jurisdiction grew extremely rich, since 
they are interested in different branches of com- 
merce, particularly the contraband." ^ 

Smuggling was everywhere practised, and as 
freely winked at by interested officials. It has al- 
ready been stated that both French and English 
governments sought to confine their colonial com- 
merce to vessels flying their own flags; but, despite 
severe laws, there was much clandestine trade. We 
have seen that Louisburg merchants maintained a 
considerable commerce with Boston, an irregularity 
overlooked by the garrison commandant because 
thence came a large share of his supplies. As early 
as 1725 Louisburg was becoming a considerable port 
of call for French vessels engaged in the West-Indian 
trade, and ships from England and her colonies were 
often in the harbor. It was thus natural that 
sugar, coffee, and tobacco from the French West 
Indies, and wine and brandy from France, should be 
exchanged with New England fishermen for codfish ; 
and brick, lumber, meal, rum, and many other New 
England commodities found their way into New 
France. 

' Pichon, Memoirs, quoted in Bourinot, Cape Breton, 30. 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 91 

Even the French fur-trade was confronted by this 
demoralizing practice. It has been shown that 
their forest merchants were unable to offer as high 
prices for furs, in barter, as the English, owing to the 
greater cost of obtaining goods suitable for the 
Indian trade through the monopoly which hung over 
them as a pall; whereas Englishmen enjoyed free 
trade and open competition.* Wherever English 
traders could penetrate — into the Cherokee country, 
into the Ohio Valley, along the lower Great Lakes, on 
the Kennebec border, and upon the New York and 
New Hampshire frontier — the savages, keen at a 
bargain, would make long journeys to reach them 
with their pelts. The French inflamed the natural 
hatred of their allies for the English as a people, 
and resorted to bullying and often to force to pre- 
vent this diversion of custom, but often without 
avail. 

Ecclesiastical affairs occupied a large share of 
popular attention in New France.^ The bishop and 
his priests ruled not only in matters spiritual, but 
in most of those temporal concerns that came near- 
est to the daily life of the people, being, indeed, 
"fathers" to their flocks. No community, whether 
of fishers, habitants, fur - traders, or soldiers was 
without either its secular priest or its missionary 
friar. The chapel or the church was the nucleus of 
every village. Being generally the only educated 

' Sec chaps, iii., vi., Thwaitcs, France in America. 
^Parkman, Old Regime, chap. xix. 



92 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1689 

man in the parish, the cure was the local school- 
master, often also served as physician, and in every 
walk of life accompanied and guided his "children" 
from the cradle to the grave. The French colonists, 
naturally an obedient people, were deeply religious ; 
they implicitly submitted to the father because they 
honored him as a counsellor and revered him as a 
man of God. Many of the ecclesiastics were bigoted, 
fanatical men, in political as well as in religious life ; 
such as Rale were perhaps better fitted for partisan 
captains than spiritual leaders. But everywhere 
it was an age of bigotry and fanaticism ; the annals 
of neither Old nor New England are spotless in this 
respect. 

Take them by and large, in comparison with the 
religious of their time in other lands, and the priests 
and missionaries of New France will not suffer in 
the examination, either intellectually or spiritually. 
Indeed, the fascinating history of their remarkable 
and wide-spread Indian missions, particularly those 
of the Jesuits — although much might also be said in 
praise of the less strenuous Recollects, Sulpitians, 
and Capuchins — furnishes some of the most brilliant 
examples on record of self-sacrificing and heroic 
devotion to an exalted cause. The career of a vil- 
lage cure was less spectacular, but his work among 
the simple habitants was even more important in the 
spiritual life of the people ; and although seldom al- 
luded to in history, was not barren of incidents which 
called for a high degree of physical as well as of 



i7So] CANADIAN PEOPLE 93 

moral courage. It is not necessary to be a Catholic, 
nor is it essential that from the stand-point of the 
twentieth century we should endorse the wisdom of 
its every act in the eighteenth, most profoundly to 
admire the work of the Church of Rome both among 
whites and savages in New France. American 
history would lose much of its welcome color were 
there blotted from its pages the picturesque and 
often thrilling story of the cures and friars of Canada 
in the French regime. 

The one great mistake of the church, which all 
can now recognize, was the barring - out of the 
Huguenots from New France, after the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, thereby driving to rival 
English settlements a considerable share of the 
brains and brawn of France, thus building up the 
rival at the expense of Canada. 

Practically there were no manufactures in New 
France. Many of the vessels engaged in interior 
commerce were smuggled through from New Eng- 
land ship-yards. The fisheries were, as we have seen, 
to some extent artificially fostered. Agriculture 
was neglected, beyond the mere necessities of sub- 
sistence. Arms, hunting, and the fur -trade were 
the only callings that prospered among these mer- 
curial, imaginative, and obedient folk, who were the 
victims of a paternal and military government that 
had not trained them to work without leading- 
strings. They were distinctly a people who needed, 



94 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [16S9 

so long as this policy continued, the constant sup- 
port of a power that could keep in continual touch 
with them, one that could dominate the lanes of the 
intervening sea ; and to this great task France was 
quite unequal. 

Theoretically, every male in New France betw^een 
the ages of sixteen and sixty was a soldier. It will 
be shown in a later chapter^ that in 1756 there were 
perhaps fifteen thousand of them, nearly half of 
these engaged in callings, such as fishing or the 
fur -trade, that had accustomed them to the use 
of arms. There were, however, in garrison but 
twenty-five hundred regular troops of the colonial 
marine,^ from France, together with a few troops 
of the line, increased under Montcalm to four 
thousand. 

There were also available, either for harrying 
the English borders or upon regular campaigns, a 
considerable number of Indians, but how many, it 
would be idle to estimate, for no statistics have come 
down to us. Most of the tribes of the Algonquian 
stock between the Mississippi and the sea could 
be relied on as allies; but the five tribes of the 
masterly Iroquois^ might generally be considered 
as enemies, although there was ever an element of 
uncertainty in their policy, dependent both on the 



•See chap, xii., Thwaites, France in America. 
^ French colonies were governed through the Department of 
Marine. 

'Greene, Proitincial Atnerica {A^n. Nation, VI.), chap. vii. 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 95 

presence or absence of grievances with their Eng- 
lish patrons and on the plausibiHty of French di- 
plomacy, which was ever busy among these astute 
warriors. 

With the exception, chiefly, of the Iroquois and 
the Foxes, the tribesmen entertained a real affection 
for the French, who, greatly desiring their trade, 
cultivated their alliance and treated them as friends 
and equals; an attitude far different from that of 
the English, who for the most part dealt with them 
honestly as customers, but could not conceal either 
their dislike of an inferior people or the fact that 
they were looked upon as subjects. French traders, 
explorers, and adventurers lived among the savages, 
took Indian women for their consorts, reared half- 
breed families, and, although representatives of the 
most polished nation of Europe, for the time being 
acted as though to the forest born. 

French missionaries succeeded in the Indian 
villages as no Protestant Englishman, with his cold 
type of Christianity, has ever done. The French 
father lived with the brown people, shared their 
privations and burdens, and ministered with loving 
and sacrificing zeal both to their spiritual and their 
physical wants. Moreover, the Catholic church, 
with its combination of mysticism and ritualistic 
pomp, its banners and processions and symbolic 
images and pictures, strongly appealed to the 
barbarians. If not really Christianized — and there 
is room seriously to doubt whether more than the 



96 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [16S9 

merest handful of North American Indians have 
ever really been converted to the creed of the 
Nazarene — they at least came in large numbers to 
adopt the forms of Catholicism, deeming a "medi- 
cine" so efficacious among white people worthy of 
respectful attention. 

We have seen that the people of New France had 
little individual enterprise; free association among 
them was discouraged ; their manufactures and com- 
merce were limited; lack of sea-power had resulted 
in neglect on the part of the mother - land ; the 
colony's sparse population was thinly scattered over 
a vast area, and was poor in resources. It might 
have been, and doubtless was, thought by astute 
European observers that in Canada's death-struggle 
with the rival colonies to the south the end would 
soon be reached and would be inevitable. 

But the contest was not to prove so one-sided 
as this. The autocratic polity of New France en- 
abled her leaders to act as a unit ; whereas against 
her were arrayed thirteen distinct provinces, with 
governors who had little authority and legislatures 
which debated and wrangled with painful deliberate- 
ness, trading on the presence of a grave public 
danger to gain concessions from the representatives 
of the crown. Such an enemy found it difficult to 
act in unison. The French colonists were poor, but 
they were intensely loyal to church and king, were 
trained to childlike obedience, were supremely con- 
tented under a paternalism that would have sorely 



i75o] CANADIAN PEOPLE 97 

fretted Englishmen, had enjoyed a fine schooling in 
the hardy and adventurous life of the forest, and 
were warlike and quick in action. Whereas their 
English rivals had been reared to trade, to love 
peace, to deliberate before they acted, to count the 
cost, and to resent dictation. The English system 
was more favorable to peaceful growth; the French 
autocracy was better suited for war. New France 
was but a pygmy, but she certainly had a good 
fighting chance. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FRENCH WAR REVEALS AN AMERICAN 
PEOPLE 

(1763) 

THE Seven Years' V^ar left Great Britain the 
most powerful state on the globe, and heralded 
the rise of an English nation in the western hemi- 
sphere. Scarcely any other military struggle has 
produced so many events of decisive interest to 
mankind. At Rossbach Frederick achieved for 
Prussia the headship of the German people, thus 
in effect laying the basis of the present imperial 
union; at Plassey Clive gained for England an 
empire in the East, whose borders are still expand- 
ing; at Quebec the victory of Wolfe won for the 
English race, though not finally for England, the 
political leadership of the western continents. 

In a very real sense the year 1763 may be taken 
as marking the beginning of the American Revolu- 



1690] AMERICAN PEOPLE 99 

tion. The causes of that event are indeed far- 
reaching. They are as old as the colonial system 
itself. In many ways for more than a century, 
although they knew it not, the people of the thirteen 
provinces were being schooled and disciplined for 
their part in it. Almost in spite of themselves they 
were becoming moulded into one social body, an 
American society, which with the attainment of 
self-consciousness must inevitably demand a larger 
and freer, if not an entirely independent life. Their 
social consciousness was, in fact, stirred by the ex- 
periences of the war; and thereafter it was swiftly 
quickened and nourished by the blunders of the 
imperial administration.^ 

Looked at in this way, the revolutionary struggle 
reaches over a score of years, beginning with the 
peace of Paris and ending with the treaty of 1783. 
It comprises two well-defined stages. The first 
stage, closing with Washington's entrance upon 
command of the Continental army in July, 1775, is 
chiefly devoted to debate, to a contest of arguments, 
called out by the successive incidents of the halting 
ministerial policy, and occasionally interrupted by 
acts of popular or military violence. The second 
stage, except for the interval following the battle 
of Yorktown, is filled mainly with the agony of 
organized warfare, the clash of arms. With the 
history of the twelve years constituting the first of 

* For the condition and organization of the colonies, see 
Greene, Provincial America {American Nation, VI.) , chap. xii. 



loo SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1690 

these stages, it is the purpose of this book to deal, 
only now and then, as in the case of the writs of 
assistance or the navigation laws, reaching back 
to events of earlier origin. 

For the colonists the moral and social results of 
the French and Indian War were very great. In 
the first place, they were relieved from the dread of 
a foreign foe whose garrisons, stretching in irregu- 
lar line from Quebec to New Orleans, had hemmed 
them in and checked their westward march. With 
the cession of the Floridas to England, the Spanish 
rival was thrust farther from their doors. ^ The 
fall of the French dominion, the weakening of the 
arm of Spain, and the failure of Pontiac had much 
lessened the peril from the red race. With the 
French or Spanish pioneers the English colonists 
had not feared to compete; nor did they feel them- 
selves unequal to dealing with the Indian tribes. 
But there was always the anxiety lest the toma- 
hawk and the scalping - knife might be raised 
through intrigues of a white enemy; and they 
deemed it just that the imperial government 
should protect them from the encroachments of 
a foreign soldiery. 

That the presence of the French was believed to 
be a very real danger is revealed by abundant 
evidence covering the whole period from the sur- 
prise of Schenectady, in 1690, to the end of the 

* For the French and Indian War, see Thwaites, France in 
America {American Nation, VII.). chaps, x.-xvi. 



1709] AMERICAN PEOPLE loi 

war.* Thus, in 1709, Jeremiah Dummer, who the 
next year began his term of service as agent of 
Massachusetts in London, "shows how early and 
passionate among the EngHsh colonies in America 
was the dread of the American power of France," 
declaring "that those colonies can never be easy or 
happy 'whilst the French are masters of Canada.' "^ 
The effect of the French settlements, reports 
Lieutenant-Governor Wentworth, of New Hamp- 
shire, to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, in 
1 73 1, "is that the Indians are frequently instigated 
and influenced by them to disturb the peace and 
quiet of this province, we having been often put to 
a vast expense both of blood and treasure, to de- 
fend ourselves against their cruel outrages."' At 
the close of the war the American colonists found 
themselves freed from this long-standing menace. 

Moreover, their imaginations were quickened ami^'' 
their mental horizon was expanded by the geo- 
graphical results. For now, with the exception of 
the island of New Orleans, an imperial domain 
stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf, and from the 
Atlantic to the Mississippi, conceaHng illimitable 
riches within its mountains and its plains, was 

' See Monseignat's letter to Madame de Maintenon, in Hart, 
Contemporaries, II., 337. 

* Dummer, Letter to a Noble Lord, 4, quoted by Tyler, Hist, 
of Ant. Lit., II., 119. 

' N. H. Hist. Soc., Collections, I., 227-230. Regarding the 
similar danger from the French on the Mississippi, see Spotts- 
wood, in Va. Hist. Soc, Collections, new series, II., 295. 
8 



I02 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1760 

thrown open to the industrial conquest of the 
EngHsh race. The enlarged view caused by this 
new environment is a fact of vast significance in 
estimating the forces underlying the contest for 
American independence. The colonist had grown 
in self-reliance, in mental stature. A greater des- 
tiny seemed to await him, and the friends of pro- 
vincial subjection were already jealous of the possi- 
ble consequences of his wider ambition. Before the 
war the Swedish traveller, Peter Kalm, writing in 
1748, records the views of this class. It is " of great 
advantage to the crown of England," he says, "that 
the North American colonies are near a country, 
under the government of the French, like Canada. 
There is reason to believe that the king never was 
earnest in his attempts to expel the French from 
their possessions there; though it might have been 
done with little difficulty. For the English colonies 
in this part of the world have encreased so much in 
their number of inhabitants, and in their riches, 
that they almost vie with Old England." "I have 
been told" that "in the space of thirty or fifty 
years " they " would be able to form a state by them- 
selves, entirely independent" of the mother-coun- 
try.^ For like reasons, in 1760, when peace seemed 
near at hand, the ministry were urged to yield 
Canada rather than Guadeloupe to the French. 
According to William Burke, a friend and kinsman 
of the celebrated statesman, Canada in French hands 
* Kalm, Travels, I., 262-265. 



1763] AMERICAN PEOPLE 103 

was necessary to preserve the "balance of power in 
America." If "the people of our colonies," he in- 
sisted, " find no check from Canada, they will extend 
themselves almost without bounds into the inland 
parts. They will increase infinitely from all causes. 
What the consequences will be to have a numerous, 
hardy, independent people, possessed of a strong 
cotmtry, communicating little or not at all with 
England," he leaves to "conjecture."^ 

Replying to Burke's pamphlet, Franklin, then rep- 
resenting Pennsylvania in London, with character- 
istic eloquence and force presented the other side of 
the case in 1760. With Canada in English hands, 
"our planters will no longer be massacred by the 
Indians," who must then depend upon us for 
supplies; and in the event of another war with 
France we shall not be put "to the immense ex- 
pense of defending that long - extended frontier." 
True, the colonists would thrive and multiply. In 
a century, at the present rate of increase, " British 
subjects on that side the water" would be "more 
numerous than they now are on this." But with 
right treatment their growing power would not 
affect their allegiance. They have different gov- 
ernments, laws, interests, and even manners. "Their 
jealousy of each other is so great, that however 
necessary a union of the colonies has long been, 
for their common defence and security against their 

* Burke, Remarks on the Letter Addressed to Two Great Men, 
30. 



I04 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1698 

enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has 
been of that necessity," such a union has thus far 
been impossible. If not against the French and 
the Indians, "can it reasonably be supposed there 
is any danger of their uniting against their own 
nation, which protects and encourages them, with 
which they have so many connexions and ties of 
blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well 
known, they all love much more than they love one 
another?" While "the government is mild and 
just, while important religious and civil rights are 
secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient. 
The waves do not rise hut when the winds blow. ' ' On 
the other hand, nothing is more likely to render 
"substantial" the "visionary danger of indepen- 
dence" than the heartless exposure of the colonists 
again to the "neighborhood of foreigners at enmity" 
with their sovereign. Will they then " have reason 
to consider themselves any longer as subjects and 
children, when they find their cruel enemies hallooed 
upon them by the country from whence they 
sprung; the government that owes them protection, 
as it requires their obedience ? ' ' Should the ministry 
take this course, it " would prevent the assuring to 
the British name and nation a stability and per- 
manency that no man acquainted with history 
durst have hoped for till our American possessions 
opened the pleasing prospect."^ Pitt agreed with 

• Franklin, Interest of Great Britain Considered, with Regard 
to Her Colonies, in Works (Bigelow's ed.), III., 83. 



1763] AMERICAN PEOPLE 105 

Franklin, taking a course consistent with broad 
statesmanship and generous humanism. 

In another way the war had prepared the colonists 
for the approaching contest. They had gained 
military experience and become aware of their 
own military strength. Battling side by side with 
the British regulars against the veterans of France, 
they had won confidence in themselves. They had 
tested their own fighting capacity, and had learned 
the need of modifying European tactics and Euro- 
pean methods to suit the exigencies of frontier war- 
fare. Moreover, at the Revolution the colonies 
possessed some officers and men who had been 
trained in actual warfare. 

Most significant of all the results of the war was 
its influence in forcing out the already nascent 
sentiment of social unity. Founded at different 
times, under separate charters, and for diverse mo- 
tives, the American provinces were in fact thirteen 
distinct societies. Except for their allegiance to a 
common sovereign, they were in theory as inde- 
pendent as if they had been foreign states. They 
waged commercial and even physical war upon each 
other. Political, economic, and religious antago- 
nisms hindered their healthier growth. Social isola- 
tion is the mark of colonial as well as of Hellenic 
history ; and in the one case it was nearly as harmful 
as in the other. Its evils were early perceived ; and 
for more than a century before the outbreak of 
the French war one finds occasional experiments. 



io6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1698 

plans, or opinions which give expression to the 
desire for a political union of all or a part of the 
colonies. Such, in 1643, was the New England 
Confederation, which, in spite of its defects, served 
well for a time the needs of its members.^ Even 
the hated general government of Andros taught 
its adversaries an unintended lesson which bore 
fruit after many days.^ The value of federation 
was suggested, while the arguments, the methods, 
and the spirit with which the policy of Grenville 
and Townshend was resisted were then antici- 
pated.^ 

From this time onward, as population grew, busi- 
ness expanded, and the final struggle with France 
drew near, the need of a common colonial govern- 
ment was felt more and more keenly by thoughtful 
men.* As early as 1698 William Penn prepared 
"A brief and plain scheme how the English colonies 
in the North parts of America , . . may be made more 
useful to the crown and one another's peace and 
safety with an universal concurrence." Under the 
presidency of a royal commissioner a representative 
congress is to assemble at least once in two years. 
It is to be composed of two "appointed and stated 

^ Tyler, England in America (American Nation, IV.), chap, 
xviii. 

^Andrews, Colonial Sclf-Govcrnmeni {American Nation, V.), 
chaps, xvi., xvii. 

^Letter of "Phileroy Philopatris," Colonial Papers, 1683, 
December 14, quoted by Doyle, Puritan Colonies, II., 223. 

* Greene, Provincial America {American Nation, VI.), chap. xi. 



i7oi] AMERICAN PEOPLE 107 

deputies" from each province; and its "business 
shall be to hear and adjust all matters of complaint 
or difference between province and province," in- 
cluding absconding debtors, extradition, commerce, 
and ways and means for securing the safety and 
united action of the colonies against the public 
enemies.^ In the same year Charles Davenant, 
praising this "constitution," suggests the creation 
of a " national assembly " to exercise powers simi- 
lar to those assigned by Penn to his "congress." 
"Though he advocated an exercise of the full power 
of the mother country over the colonies," says 
Frothingham,^ " yet he urged also a principle con- 
stantly put forth by them ; namely, that, in any gov- 
ernment that might be established over them, care 
should be taken to observe sacredly the charters 
and terms under which the emigrants, at the hazard 
of their lives, had effected discoveries and settle- 
ments"; and "one of his hberal remarks is, that the 
stronger and greater the colonies grow, 'the more 
they would benefit the crown and the kingdom; 
and nothing but such an arbitrary power as shall 
make them desperate can bring them to rebel.'" 
A "Virginian," writing in 1701, criticises the 
schemes of Penn and Davenant, urging that the 
colonies ought to have, not an equal number of 
deputies in the general assembly, but a representa- 

' N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 296. 

^ Davenant, Discourse on the Plantation Trade, quoted in 
Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, in. 



io8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1754 

tion better apportioned according to their respective 
numbers and resources/ 

In 1722 Daniel Coxe, anticipating some features 
of Franklin's plan, recommended that "all the col- 
onies appertaining to the crown of Great Britain 
on the northern continent of America, be united 
in a legal, regular, and firm establishment," under a 
"lieutenant, or supreme governour," and with a 
representative assembly for control of its finances.^ 
Plans more favorable to the prerogative were also 
suggested from time to time, as by Robert Living- 
ston in 1 701, and by Archibald Kennedy in 1752.^ 
Occasional congresses of governors and other of- 
ficials for conference with the Indians likewise did 
something to extend intercolonial acquaintance and 
to kindle the slowly dawning perception of the es- 
sential solidarity of provincial interests throughout 
the continent.* 

Finally, in 1754, the famous Plan of Union drafted 
by Franklin was actually accepted by the Albany 
convention. This constitution for a united Amer- 
ican people, proposed by a representative conven- 
tion, is a new and significant event in the history 

* An Essay upon the Government of the English Plantations, 
69, summarized by Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 109-112. 

' Coxe, Description of the English Province of Carolana, 
Preface. 

^ Livingston, in A?^. Y. Docs.Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 874; Kennedy, 
Importance of the Friendship of the Indians, 7-15, 38; Frothing- 
ham, Rise of the Republic, 116; part of the texts in American 
History Leaflets, No. 14. 

* Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, chap. iv. 



1754] AMERICAN PEOPLE 109 

of political science.* Among its provisions are some 
far wiser than the corresponding ones in the Articles 
of Confederation, of which it is the prototype. It 
never became a law. In America it was rejected as 
allowing " too much to prerogative, " and in England 
" as having too much weight in the democratic part." 

The assemblies did well to decline an instrument 
which by one of its provisions, not in Franklin's 
original draft, would have yielded to Parliament 
the right to change their local institutions. Yet in 
its failure Franklin's plan was a lasting success. 
The educational value of an earnest debate on the 
great problem of American union, taking place 
simultaneously throughout the thirteen colonies, 
should not be underestimated. At the very out- 
break of the war a problem, which thus far for a 
few leaders had possessed mainly a literary or 
speculative interest, had definitively entered the 
field of practical politics. Still the hope of federa- 
tion would have to flower before it could yield 
actual fruit. The heart of the plain people had 
not yet been touched. This is what the war 
effected. The experiences of the war called into 
being a real though inchoate popular opinion re- 
garding the social destiny of the English race in 
America — a rudimentary national sentiment which 
impending events would speedily force into full 
and unquenchable life. 

Hitherto there had not been, and under ordinary 

* Thwaites, France in America (^American Nation, VII.) , chap, x- 



no SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1763 

circumstances there could hardly be, much inter- 
communication. Travel was then a serious business. 
By stage, four days were needed to go from Boston 
to New York, and three days more to reach Phila- 
delphia. Even the "flying-machine," put on the 
road in 1766, required two days for the trip between 
the last-named cities. The newspapers were few, 
dear, and scant of information. In fair weather, 
to spread news throughout the colonies took three 
weeks, and much longer than that in winter. Few 
of the wealthy or public men of the south had 
ever seen those of the north. The common people 
of one colony had the vaguest notions regarding 
their neighbors in another, and often their intense 
provincialism was mingled with bitter prejudices 
bred by earlier antagonisms or rivalries. The war 
in many ways broke down the barriers and got 
people to know each other. Legislatures were 
called upon to discuss the same or similar measures. 
Men from Virginia or Pennsylvania met those of 
Massachusetts or Connecticut in council or on the 
march and by the camp-fire, and they succored one 
another in battle. The money and troops sent to the 
north by the southern and less exposed colonies bred 
' ' mutual good-will , ' ' and the colonial officers ' ' forgot ' ' 
their "jealousies" in the contempt shown for them 
by the British subalterns. The private soldiers, too, 
resented the patronizing airs of the king's regulars.* 

* Andrews, United States, I., 15S; Wceden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, 
of New Hng., II., 668. 



1763] AMERICAN PEOPLE. iii 

Negatively, in still another way the colonies were 
being drawn together and apart from the British 
government. For it was precisely at this time that 
alarm was caused by the schemes of the ministry 
and the suggestions of governors like Shirley of 
Massachusetts, Bernard of New Jersey, and Din- 
widdie of Virginia, for raising a war revenue on the 
colonies and overriding their chartered rights. In 
1754, as later in 1756 and 1760, the "British minis- 
try heard one general clamor from men in office for 
taxation by act of parliament." ^ The governors 
were ordered to provide for quartering troops on 
the colonists and for impressing carriages and pro- 
visions for their support.^ Almost everywhere bit- 
ter disputes arose between the assemblies and the 
executive bodies. The proprietors of Pennsylvania 
selfishly declined to share with the people the bur- 
den of extra taxation, leading to a prolonged 
struggle, in which in 1760 the assembly was victori- 
ous. In Maryland a similar contest with the pro- 
prietor was carried on.^ 

Under Newcastle as the nominal head, suggests 
a recent English scholar, "the two ministers who 
were practically responsible for the disasters which 
brought Pitt into office were Halifax, as president 

' Bancroft, United States (ed. of 1885), II., 408-418, 443-449, 

529-533- 

^ See orders of 1758, in Hubert Hall, "Chatham's Colonial 
Policy," in Am, Hist. Review, V., 664. 

' Black, Alaryland's Attitude in the Struggle for Canada 
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, X., No. 7), 



112 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1755 

of the Board of Trade and Plantations, and Sir 
Thomas Robinson, as the departmental secretary 
of state. If we add to these military and naval ad- 
visers as pedantic as Ligonier and Anson, command- 
ers such as Braddock and Ix)udoun, governors of 
the type of Shirley, and the whole crew of brigadiers 
and post-captains, attorneys-general, vice-admirals, 
and revenue officers, all prepared to take their 
cue from the sententious loyalty which pervaded the 
optimist despatches from Whitehall, we shall not be 
surprised if 'the just grievances of his Majesty's 
loyal and faithful subjects' waited in vain for 
redress."^ Nor need we wonder if a nagging and 
hectoring policy, just when there was supreme need 
of conciliation, should have aided in awakening the 
social consciousness of America. 

Governor Shirley, indeed, in 1755, did not sym- 
pathize with the "apprehensions" that the colonies 
"will in time unite to throw ofif their dependency 
upon their mother country, and set up one general 
government among themselves." Their different 
constitutions, clashing interests, and opposite tem- 
pers made "such a coalition" seem "highly im- 
probable." "At all events, they could not main- 
tain such an independency without a strong naval 
force, which it must forever be in the power of 
Great Britain to hinder them from having"; and 
he makes the sinister suggestion, that "whilst his 

•Hubert Hall, "Chatham's Colonial Policy," in Am. Hist. 
Review, V., 664. 



1755] AMERICAN PEOPLE 113 

majesty hath seven thousand troops kept up within 
them, with the Indians at eommand, it seems easy, 
provided his governors and principal officers are 
independent of the assemblies for their vSubsistence 
and commonly vigilant, to prevent any step of 
that kind from being taken." * Others had a keen- 
er vision. In the same year John Adams, then 
a village school-teacher, believed that "if we can 
remove the turbulent Gallicks, our people, accord- 
ing to the exactest calculations, will in another 
century become more numerous than England 
itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I 
may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our 
hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the 
seas ; then the united forces of all Europe will not be 
able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from 
setting up for ourselves is to disunite us." ^ 

Already, in 1730, Montesquieu had prophesied 
that because of the laws of navigation and trade 
England would be the first nation abandoned by 
her colonies.^ Not long thereafter, in his memoirs, 
Argenson predicted that the English colonies in 
America would sometime rise against the mother- 
country, form themselves into a republic, and 
astonish the world by their progress.* In 1750, 

' Shirley to Sir Thomas Robinson, August 15, 1755, in Bancroft, 
United States (ro vol. ed.), IV., 214. 

^ Adams, Works, I., 23. 

' Montesquieu, " Notes sur I'Angleterre," in QLuvres (ed. of 
1826), VIII., 452. 

* Argenson, Pensees sur la Reformation de I'Etat, I., 55, 56. 



114 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1760 

twenty-five years before Washington had begun 
to favor independence, Turgot had hkened colonies 
to fruit which clings to the parent stem only until 
ripe, and predicted that what Carthage once did 
"America will sometime do,"^ On learning of the 
terms of the treaty of 1763, Vergennes, then French 
ambassador at Constantinople, said that "the 
consequences of the entire cession of Canada are 
obvious. I am persuaded England will ere long 
repent of having removed the only check that could 
keep her colonies in awe. They stand no longer in 
need of her protection ; she will call on them to con- 
tribute toward supporting the burdens they have 
helped to bring on her; and they will answer by 
striking off all dependence."^ 

The population of the colonies was of first-rate 
quality for nation - building. The basis was of 
Anglo-Saxon stock. The New England people were 
almost pure English, with slight intermixture of 
Scotch-Irish and other elements. The Scotch were 
numerous, notably in New Hampshire and North 
Carolina. There were French Huguenots, partic- 
ularly in South Carolina, a few Swedes in Dela- 
ware, Dutch in New Jersey and New York, while 
perhaps a third of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania 
were Germans. According to the most careful 
estimate, the thirteen colonies in 1760 had a total 

' Stephens, Turgot, 165. 

^ Vergennes, as quoted in Bancroft, United States (ed. of 1SS5), 
II., 564. 



1763] AMERICAN PEOPLE 115 

population of about 1,600,000; 2,000,000 in 1767; 
2,200,000 in 1770; 2,600,000 in 1775; 2,800,000 in 
1780.* In 1763, therefore, the whole number of 
souls was not far from 1,775,000. Of this number 
about 360,000 were negroes, slave and free, of whom 
more than three-fourths were south of Pennsylvania. 

In 1775 Massachusetts had about 335,000 in- 
habitants; Pennsylvania 300,000; New York 190,- 
000; North Carolina over 265,000; and Virginia 
450,000, of whom one - third were blacks. The 
colonial population was doubling itself in twenty- 
three years, and it was very largely rural. As in the 
Old World, the tide of migration to urban centres was 
only beginning. In 1763 there were but four towns 
of considerable size in the country: Boston and 
Philadelphia^ each with about 20,000, New York 
with perhaps 12,000, and Charleston with 9000 
persons. Baltimore may have had 5000, Provi- 
dence 4000, and Albany 3000. Nearly five per 
cent, of the colonial population was then urban; 
whereas, by the census of 1900, over forty per cent, 
of the people of continental United States dwell in 
towns of at least 2500 inhabitants. 

At the beginning of the Revolution servants by 
indenture were still being advertised for sale. These 
included free persons, whom necessity forced into 



' Dexter, Estimates of Population in the American Colonies, 
50; Bancroft, United States (ed. of 1885), II., 390. 

* See estimates for 1759 by Burnaby, Travels (ed. of 1775), 
76, 133; Lecky, England, III., 303, 307. 



ii6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1775 

temporary bondage, as well as banished convicts/ 
Thus, in 1753, it was announced that the Greyhound 
had arrived at the Severn, Maryland, " with 90 
persons doomed to stay seven years in his Majesty's 
American plantations." Two years later the same 
newspaper informed the public that "more than 
100 seven-year passengers have arrived at Annap- 
olis." Criminals were transported to the same 
colony as late at least as 1774.^ The fact is en- 
lightening. The propriety of receiving the foul 
harvest of the London prisons seems scarcely to have 
been questioned by the colonists. The slight prog- 
ress made in the knowledge of social as well as 
economic laws should never be forgotten in trying 
to understand the origin and long toleration of 
British colonial policy. 

' Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist, of New Eng., II., 520, 695. 

^Boston Gazette, May 8, 1753, and July 10, 1755. Cf. Butler, 
"British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies," in Am. 
Hist. Review, II., 29, 30. 



CHAPTER VII 

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 
(1763-1775) 

NOT a clause in the Declaration of Independence 
sets forth the real and underlying cause of the 
American Revolution. The attention of its writer 
was bent upon recent events, and he dwelt only 
upon the immediate reasons for throwing off 
allegiance to the British government. In the dark 
of the storm already upon them, the men of the 
time could hardly look with clear vision back to 
ultimate causes. They could not see that the 
English kings had planted the seeds of the Revolu- 
tion when, in their zeal to get America colonized, 
they had granted such political and religious priv- 
ileges as tempted the radicals and dissenters of 
the time to migrate to America. Only historical 
research could reveal the fact that from the year 
1620 the English government had been systemati- 



ii8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1620 

cally stocking the colonies with dissenters and re- 
taining in England the conformers. The tendency 
of colonization was to leave the conservatives in 
England, thus relatively increasing the conservative 
force at home, while the radicals went to America 
to fortify the radical political philosophy there. 
Thus England lost part of her potentiality for 
political development. 

Not only were radicals constantly settling in the 
colonies, because of the privileges granted them 
there, but the crown neglected to enforce in the 
colonies the same regulations that it enforced at 
home. The Act of Uniformity was not extended 
to the colonies, though rigidly enforced in England ; 
the viceregal officers, the governors, permitted them- 
selves again and again to be browbeaten and dis- 
obeyed by the colonial legislatures;^ and even the 
king himself had allowed Massachusetts (1635) to 
overreach him by not giving up her charter.^ 

After a century of great laxity towards the 
colonies — a century in which the colonists were 
favored by political privileges shared by no other 
people of that age; after the environment had 
established new social conditions, and remoteness 
and isolation had created a local and individual 
hatred of restraint; after the absence of traditions 
had made possible the institution of representation 
by population, and self-government had taken on a 

' Greene, The Provincial Governor, passim. 
' Barry, Hist, of Mass., I., 288-295. 



i76o] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 119 

new meaning in the world; after a great gulf had 
been fixed between the social, political, and economic 
institutions of the two parts of the British empire — 
only then did the British government enter upon 
a policy intended to make the empire a unity. ^ 

Independence had long existed in spirit in most 
of the essential matters of colonial life, and the 
British government had only to seek to establish 
its power over the colonies in order- to arouse a de- 
sire for formal independence. The transition in 
England, therefore, to an imperial ideal, about the 
middle of the eighteenth century, doubtless caused 
the rending of the empire. Walpole and Newcastle, 
whose administrations had just preceded the reign 
of George III., had let the colonies alone, and thus 
aided the colonial at the expense of the imperial 
idea; while their successors, Grenville and Town- 
shend, ruling not wisely but too well, forced the 
colonists to realize that they cared more for Amer- 
ica than for England. 

The time had come, though these ministers failed 
to see it, when the union of Great Britain with her 
colonies depended on the offspring's disposition 
towards the mother-country. Good feeling would 
preserve the union, but dissatisfaction would make 
even forcible control impossible. Social and polit- 
ical and economic ties still bound the colonists to 
the home land, but these were weak ties as compared 

* For a detailed study of this subject, see Howard, Prelimi- 
naries of the Revolution (American Nation, VIII.). 



I20 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCEvS [1760 

with an irrepressible desire for self-growth. The 
expression of their political ideals unrestrained by 
the conservatism of the parent was a desired end to 
which they strove, almost unconscious of their object. 

To understand the American Revolution, there- 
fore, several facts must be clearly in mind — first, 
that Great Britain had for one hundred and fifty 
years been growing to the dignity of an empire, and 
that the thirteen colonies were a considerable part 
of that empire ; second, the colonies had interests of 
their own which were not favored by the growing 
size and strength of the empire. They were ad- 
vancing to new political ideals faster than the 
mother-country. Their economic interests were 
becoming differentiated from those of England. 
They were coming to have wants and ambitions 
and hopes of their own quite distinct from those of 
Great Britain. 

At the fatal time when the independent spirit of 
America had grown assertive, the politically active 
part of the British people began unconsciously to 
favor an imperial policy, which their ministers sug- 
gested, and which to them seemed the very essence 
of sound reasoning and good government. They 
approved of the proposed creation of executives 
who should be independent of the dictation of the 
colonial assemblies. There were also to be new 
administrative organs having power to enforce the 
colonial trade regulations ; and the defensive system 
of the colonies was to be improved by a force of reg- 



1764] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 121 

ular troops, which was in part to be supported by- 
colonial taxes. 

In order to accomplish these objects, the king's 
new minister, the assiduous Grenville, who knew 
the law better than the maxims of statesmanship, 
induced Parliament, in March, 1764, to resolve upon 
"certain stamp duties" for the colonies. A year 
later the "Gentle Shepherd," as Pitt had dubbed 
him, proved his watchfulness by getting a stamp 
act passed,* which, though nearly a duplicate of one 
in force in England, and like one of Massachusetts' 
own laws, nevertheless aroused every colony to vio- 
lent wrath. 

This sudden flame of colonial passion rose from 
the embers of discontent with Grenville's policy of 
enforcing the trade or navigation laws — those re- 
strictions upon colonial industries and commerce 
which were the outgrowth of a protective commer- 
cial policy which England had begun even before 
the discovery of America.^ As the colonies grew 
they began to be regarded as a source of wealth to 
the mother-country; and, at the same time that 
bounties were given them for raising commodities 
desired by England, restrictions were placed upon 
American trade. ^ When the settlers of the northern 

* 5 George III., chap, xii., given in Macdonald, Select Charters, 
281. * Beer, Commercial Policy of England, 10—13. 

^ f'or details and exact references to laws, see Channing, The 
Navigation Laws, in Amer. Antiq. Soc, Proceedings, new series, 
VI. For discussion, see Andrews, Colonial Self-Government , chap. 
i.; Greene, Colonial Commonwealths {American Nation, V., VI.). 



122 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1733 

and middle colonies began manufacturing for them- 
selves, their industry no sooner interfered with 
English manufactures than a law was passed to 
prevent the exportation of the production and to 
limit the industry itself. This system of restric- 
tions, though it necessarily established a real oppo- 
sition of interest between America and England, 
does not seem on the whole to have been to the dis- 
advantage of the colonies ; * nor was the English colo- 
nial system a whit more severe than that of other 
European countries. 

In 1733, however, the Molasses Act went into ef- 
fect,^ and, had it been enforced, would have been a 
serious detriment to American interests. It not only 
aimed to stop the thriving colonial trade with the 
Dutch, French, and Spanish West Indies, but was 
intended to aid English planters in the British West 
Indies by laying a prohibitive duty on imported 
foreign sugar and molasses. It was not enforced, 
however, for the customs officials, by giving fraud- 
ulent clearances, acted in collusion with the colonial 
importers in evading the law; but, in 1761, during 
the war with France, the thrifty colonists carried on 
an illegal trade with the enemy^ and Pitt demanded 
that the restrictive laws be enforced. 

The difficulty of enforcing was great, for it was 
hard to seize the smuggled goods, and harder still to 
convict the smuggler in the colonial courts. Search- 

' Beer, Commercial Policy of England, chap. vii. 
'6 George II., chap. xiii. 



T 76.^5] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 123 

warrants were impracticable, because the legal man- 
ner of using them made the informer's name public, 
and the law was unable to protect him from the 
anger of a community fully in sympathy with the 
smugglers. The only feasible way to put down this 
unpatriotic trade with the enemy was to resort to 
"writs of assistance," which would give the cus- 
toms officers a right to search for smuggled goods in 
any house they pleased.* Such warrants were legal, 
had been used in America, and were frequently used 
in England ;^ yet so highly developed was the Amer- 
ican love of personal liberty that when James Otis, 
a Boston lawyer, resisted by an impassioned speech 
the issue of such writs his arguments met universal 
approval.^ In perfect good faith he argued, after 
the manner of the ancient law-writers, that Parlia- 
ment could not legalize tyranny, ignoring the his- 
torical fact that since the revolution of 1688 an act 
of Parliament was the highest guarantee of right, 
and Parliament the sovereign and supreme power. 
Nevertheless, the popularity of Otis's argument 
showed what America believed, and pointed very 
plainly the path of wise statesmanship. 

When, in 1763, the Pontiac Indian rebellion en- 
dangered the whole West and made necessary a 
force of soldiers in Canada, Grenville, in spite of the 
recent warning, determined that the colonies should 

' Macdonald, Select Charters, 259. 

^ Lecky, American Revolution (Woodbum's ed.), 48. 

'J. Adams, Works, II., 523-525. 



124 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1763 

share the burden which was rapidly increasing in 
England. He lowered the sugar and molasses duties, * 
and set out to enforce their collection by every law- 
ful means. The trouble which resulted developed 
more quickly in Massachusetts, because its harsh 
climate and sterile soil drove it to a carrying -trade, 
and the enforced navigation laws were thought to 
threaten its ruin. It was while American economic 
affairs were in this condition that Grenville rashly 
aggravated the discontent by the passage of his 
Stamp Act. 

As the resistance of the colonies to this taxation 
led straight to open war and final independence, it 
will be worth while to look rather closely at the 
stamp tax, and at the subject of representation, 
which was at once linked with it. The terms of the 
Stamp Act are not of great importance, because, 
though it did have at least one bad feature as a law, 
the whole opposition was on the ground that there 
should be no taxation whatever without represen- 
tation. It made no difference to its enemies that 
the money obtained by the sale of stamps was to 
stay in America to support the soldiers needed for 
colonial protection. Nothing would appease them 
while the taxing body contained no representatives 
of their own choosing. 

To attain this right, they made their fight upon 
legal and historical grounds — the least favorable 
they could have chosen. They declared that, under 

' 4 George III., chap. xv. 



176s] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 125 

the British constitution, there could be no taxation 
except by persons known and voted for by the per- 
sons taxed. The wisest men seemed not to see the 
kernel of the dispute. A very real danger threat- 
ened the colonies — subject as they were to a body 
unsympathetic with the political and economic con- 
ditions in which they were living — ^but they had no 
legal safeguard.* They must either sever the exist- 
ing constitutional bond or get Parliament of its own 
will to limit its power over the colonies. All un- 
wittingly the opponents of the Stamp Act were 
struggling with a problem that could be solved only 
by revolution. 

Two great fundamental questions were at issue: 
Should there be a British empire ruled by Parlia- 
ment in all its parts, either in England or oversea? 
or should Parliament govern at home, and the colo- 
nial assemblies in America, with only a federal bond 
to unite them? Should the English understanding 
of representation be imposed upon the colonies ? or 
should America's institution triumph in its own 
home? If there was to be a successful imperial 
system. Parliament must have the power to tax all 
parts of the empire. It was of no use to plead that 
Parliament had never taxed the colonies before, for, 
as Dr. Johnson wrote, "We do not put a calf into 
the plough: we wait till it is an ox."^ The colonies 
were strong enough to stand taxation now, and the 

' Osgood, in Political Science Quarterly, XIII., 45. 
' Lecky, American Revolution (Woodburn's ed.), 64. 



126 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1765 

reasonable dispute must be as to the manner of it. 
To understand the widely different points of view 
of Englishmen and Americans, we must examine 
their systems of representative government. 

In electing members to the House of Commons in 
England certain ancient counties and boroughs were 
entitled to representation, each sending two mem- 
bers, regardless of the number of people within its 
territory. For a century and a half before the 
American Revolution only four new members were 
added to the fixed number in Parliament. Mean- 
while, great cities had grown up which had no rep- 
resentation, though certain boroughs, once very 
properly represented, had become uninhabited, and 
the lord who owned the ground elected the members 
to Parliament, taking them, not from the district 
represented, but from any part of the kingdom. 
The franchise was usually possessed either by the 
owners of the favored pieces of land or in the 
boroughs chiefly by persons who inherited certain 
rights which marked them as freemen. A man had 
as many votes as there were constituencies in which 
he possessed the qualifications. 

In the colonial assemblies there was a more dis- 
tinct territorial basis for representation, and changes 
of population brought changes of representation. 
New towns sent new members to the provincial 
assembly, and held the right to be of great value. 
All adult men — even negroes in New England- 
owning a certain small amount of property could 



1765] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 127 

vote for these members. In the South only the 
landholders voted, but the supply of land was not 
limited, as in England, and it was easily acquired. 
P'inally, the voter and the representative voted for 
must, as a rule, be residents of the same district. 
From the first the colonial political ideals were 
affected by new conditions. When they established 
representative government they had no historic 
I)laces sanctified by tradition to be the sole breeding- 
places of members of Parliament. 

Backed by such divergent traditions as these, the 
two parts of the British empire, or, more accurately, 
the dominant party in each section of the empire, 
faced each other upon a question of principle. 
Neither could believe in the honesty of the other, 
for each argued out of a different past. The oppo- 
nents of the Stamp Act could not understand the 
political thinking which held them to be represented 
in the British Parliament. "No taxation without 
representation" meant for the colonist that taxes 
ought to be levied by a legislative body in which was 
seated a person known and voted for by the person 
taxed. An Englishman only asked that there be 
"no taxation except that voted by the House of 
Commons." He was not concerned with the mode 
of election to that house or the interests of the per- 
sons composing it. The colonist called the Stamp 
Act tyranny, but the British government certainly 
intended none, for it acted upon the theory of virtual 
representation, the only kind of representation en- 



128 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1763 

joyed by the great mass of Englishmen either at 
home or in the colonies. On that theory nothing 
was taxed except by the consent of the virtual rep- 
resentatives of those taxed. But, replied an Amer- 
ican, in England the interests of electors and non- 
electors are the same. Security against any op- 
pression of non-electors lies in the fact that it 
would be oppressive to electors also ; but Americans 
have no such safeguard, for acts oppressive to them 
might be popular with English electors.^ 

When the news of the Stamp Act first came over- 
sea there was apparent apathy. The day of en- 
forcement was six months away, and there was 
nothing to oppose but a law. It was the fitting time 
for an agitator. Patrick Henry, a gay, unprosper- 
ous, and unknown country lawyer, had been carried 
into the Virginia House of Burgesses on the public 
approval of his impassioned denial, in the " Parson's 
Cause" (1763), of the king's right to veto a needed 
law passed by the colonial legislature. He now 
offered some resolutions against the stamp tax, 
denying the right of Parliament to legislate in the 
internal affairs of the colony." This " alarum bell to 
the disaffected," and the fiery speech which secured 
its adoption by an irresolute assembly, were ap- 
plauded evepy'-where. Jefferson said of Henry, that 
he "spoke as Homer wrote." 

As soon as the names of the appointed stamp-dis- 

• Dulany, in Tyler, Lit. Hist, of Am. Rev., I., 104-105. 

' Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Patrick Henry, I., S4-89. 



1765I CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 129 

tributers were made known (August i, 1765) the 
masses expressed their displeasure in a way unfortu- 
nately too common in America. Throughout the 
land there was rifling of stamp-collectors' houses, 
threatening their lives, burning their records and 
documents, and even their houses. Their offlces 
were demolished and their resignations compelled — 
in one case under a hanging effigy, suggestive of the 
result of refusal. The more moderate patriots can- 
celled their orders with British merchants, agreed 
not to remit their English debts, and dressed in 
homespun to avoid wearing imported clothes. 

On the morning that the act went into effect (No- 
vember I, 1765) bells tolled the death of the nation. 
Shops were shut, flags hung at half-mast, and news- 
papers appeared with a death's-head where the 
stamp should have been. Mobs burned the stamps, 
and none were to be had to legalize even the most 
solemn and important papers. The courts ignored 
them and the governors sanctioned their omission. 
None could be used, because none could be obtained. 
All America endorsed the declaration of rights of the 
Stamp-Act Congress, which met in New York, Octo- 
ber, 1765. It asserted that the colonists had the same 
liberties as British subjects. Circumstances, they de- 
clared, prevented the colonists from being represented 
in the House of Commons, therefore no taxes could 
be levied except by their respective legislatures.* 

This great ado was a complete surprise to the 

' Hart, Contemporaries, II., 402, 



I30 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1765 

British government. On the passage of the Stamp 
Act, Walpole had written/ " There has been nothing 
of note in Parliament but one sHght day on the 
American taxes." That expressed the common 
conception of its importance ; and when the Gren- 
ville ministry fell (July, 1765), and was succeeded 
by that of Rockingham, the American situation 
had absolutely nothing to do with the change. The 
new ministry was some months in deciding its pol- 
icy. The king was one of the first to realize the 
situation, which he declared "the most serious that 
ever came before Parliament" (December 5, 1765). 
Weak and unwilling to act as the new ministry was, 
the situation compelled attention. The king at first 
favored coercion of the rebellious colonies, but the 
English merchants, suffering from the suspended 
trade, urged Parliament to repeal the act. Their 
demand decided the ministry to favor retraction, 
just as formerly their influence had forced the navi- 
gation laws and the restrictions on colonial manu- 
factures. If the king and landed gentry were re- 
sponsible for the immediate causes of the Revolu- 
tion, the influence of the English commercial classes 
on legislation was the more ultimate cause. 

After one of the longest and most heated debates 
in the history of Parliament, under the advice of 
Benjamin Franklin, given at the bar of the House 
of Commons,^ and with the powerful aid of Pitt and 

* Walpole' s Letters, February 12, 1765. 

* Franklin, Works (Sparks's ed.), IV., 161-198. 



1766] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 131 

Camden, the Stamp Act was repealed. Another act 
passed at the same, time asserted Parliament's power 
to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.* 
Thus the firebrand was left smouldering amid the 
inflammable colonial affairs; and Burke was quick 
to point out that the right to tax, or any other 
right insisted upon after it ceased to harmonize with 
prudence and expediency, would lead to disaster.^ 

It is plain to-day that the only way to keep up the 
nominal union between Great Britain and her colo- 
nies was to let them alone. The colonies felt strongly 
the ties of blood, interest, and affection which bound 
them to England.^ They would all have vowed, 
after the repeal of the Stamp Act, that they loved 
their parent much more than they loved one another. 
They felt only the normal adult instinct to act in- 
dependently. Could the British government have 
given up the imperial idea to which it so tenaciously 
clung, a federal union might have been preserved. 

The genius of dissolution, however, gained control 
of the ministry which next came into power. When 
illness withdrew Pitt from the "Mosaic Ministry," 
which he and Grafton had formed, Townshend's 
brilliant talents gave him the unquestioned lead. 
This man, who is said to have surpassed Burke in 
wit and Chatham in solid sense, determined to try 
again to tax the colonies for imperial purposes.^ He 

• 6 George III., chap. xii. ^ Morley, Burke, 146. 
' Franklin, Works (Sparks's ed.), IV., 169. 

* Walpole, Memoirs of George III., II., 275, III., 23-27. 



132 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1767 

ridiculed the distinction between external and in- 
ternal tax; but since the colonists had put stress 
on the illegality of the latter he laid the new tax 
on imported articles, and prepared to collect at the 
custom-houses. The income was to pay the sal- 
aries of colonial governors and judges, and thus 
render them independent of the tyrannical and 
contentious assemblies. Writs of assistance, so 
effective in enforcing the revenue laws, but so hated 
by the colonists, were legalized. The collection of 
the revenue was further aided by admiralty courts, 
which should try the cases without juries, thus 
preventing local sympathy from shielding the 
violators of the law.^ 

All the indifference into which America had 
relapsed, and which the agitators so much deplored, 
at once disappeared. The right of trial by jury was 
held to be inalienable. The control of the judiciary 
and executive by the people was necessary to free 
government, asserted the pamphleteers. Parliament 
could not legalize "writs of assistance," they rashly 
cried. The former stickling at an internal tax was 
forgotten, and they objected to any tax whatever — a 
more logical position, which John Dickinson, of Penn- 
sylvania, supported by the assertion "that any law, 
in so far as it creates expense, is in reality a tax." 
Samuel Adams drew up a circular letter, which the 
Massachusetts assembly despatched to the other 

' 7 George III., chaps, xli., xlvi., Ivi. See Macdonald, Select 
Charters, 320-330. 



1768] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 133 

colonial assemblies, urging concerted action against 
this new attack on colonial liberties/ The British 
government, through the colonial governors, at- 
tempted to squelch this letter, but the Massachusetts 
assembly refused to rescind, and the other colonies 
were quick to embrace its cause. 

Signs were not wanting that the people as well 
as the political leaders were aroused. When the 
customs officials, in 1768, seized John Hancock's 
sloop Liberty, for alleged evasion of the customs 
duties, there was a riot which so frightened the 
officers that they fled to the fort and wrote to 
England for soldiers. 

Tliis and other acts of resistance to the govern- 
ment led Parliament to urge the king to exercise a 
right given him by an ancient act to cause persons 
charged with treason to be brought to England 
for trial. The Virginia assembly protested against 
this, and sent their protest to the other colonies for 
approval.' The governor dissolved the assembly, 
but it met and voted a non-importation agreement, 
which also met favor in the other colonies. This 
economic argument again proved effective, and the 
Townshend measures were repealed, except the tax on 
tea; Parliament thus doing everything but remove 
the offence — " fixing a badge of slavery upon the 
Americans without service to their masters."' The 

' Samuel Adams, Writings (Cushing's ed.), I., 184. 
^ Hutchinson, Hist, of Massaclmsetts Bay, III., 494. 
^Junius (ed. of 1799), II., 31. 
10 



134 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1768 

old trade regulations also remained to vex the 
colonists. 

In order that no disproportionate blame may be 
attached to the king or his ministry for the bringing 
on of the Revolution, it must be noted that the 
English nation, the Parliament, and the king were 
all agreed when the sugar and stamp acts were 
passed; and though Parliament mustered a good- 
sized minority against the Townshend acts, never- 
theless no unaccustomed influence in its favor was 
used by the king. Thus the elements of the clotid 
were all gathered before the king's personality began 
to intensify the oncoming storm. The later acts of 
Parliament and the conduct of the king had the 
sole purpose of overcoming resistance to established 
government. Most of these coercive acts, though 
no part of the original policy, were perfectly con- 
stitutional even in times of peace. They must 
be considered in their historical setting, however, 
just as President Lincoln's extraordinary acts in a 
time of like national peril. Henceforth we are 
dealing with the natural, though perhaps ill-judged, 
efforts of a government to repress a rebellion. 

After the riot which followed the seizure of the 
Liberty (June, 1768), two regiments of British 
soldiers were stationed in Boston. The ver>'' in- 
adequacy of the force made its relations with the 
citizens strained, for they resented without fearing 
it. After enduring months of jeering and vilifica- 
tion, the soldiers at last (March 5, 1770) tired 



1773] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 135 

upon a threatening mob, and four men were killed. 
Much was made of the "massacre," as it was called, 
because it symbolized for the people the substitution 
of military for civil government. A Boston jury 
acquitted the soldiers, and, after a town-meeting, 
the removal of the two regiments was secured. 

A period of quiet followed until the assembly and 
the governor got into a debate over the theoretical 
rights of the colonists. To spread the results of this 
debate, Samuel Adams devised the "committees 
of correspondence,"^ which kept the towns of 
Massachusetts informed of the controversy in 
Boston. This furnished a model for the colonial 
committees of correspondence, which became the 
most efficient means for revolutionary organization. 
They created public opinion, set war itself in motion, 
and were the embryos of new governments when 
the old were destroyed. 

The first provincial committee that met with gen- 
eral response from the other colonies was appointed 
by Virginia, March 12, 1773, to keep its assembly 
informed of the * ' Gaspee Commission . " ^ The Gas pee 
was a sort of revenue-cutter which, while too zealous- 
ly enforcing the Navigation Acts, ran aground (June 
9, 1772) in Narragansett Bay. Some Providence 
men seized and burned the vessel, and the British 
government appointed a commission to inquire into 

' Collins, Committees of Correspondence (Amer. Hist. Assoc, 
Report, 1901), I., 247. 

» Va. Cal. of State Pap., VIII., 1-2. 



136 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCEvS [1773 

the affair.* The commission met with universal 
opposition and had to report failure. 

From this time on the chain of events that led to 
open rebellion consists of a series of links so plainly- 
joined and so well known that they need only the 
barest mention in this brief introduction to the 
actual war. The British government tried to give 
temporary aid to the East India Company by re- 
mitting the heavy revenue on tea entering English 
ports, through which it must pass before being 
shipped to America, and by licensing the company 
itself to sell tea in America.^ To avoid yielding the 
principle for which they had been contending, they 
retained at colonial ports the threepenny duty, 
which was all that remained of the Townshend 
revenue scheme. Ships loaded with this cheap tea 
came into the several American ports and were 
received with different marks of odium at different 
places. In Boston, after peaceful attempts to pre- 
vent the landing proved of no avail, an impromp- 
tu band of Indians threw the tea overboard, so that 
the next morning saw it lying like sea-weed on Dor- 
chester beach. 

This outrage, as it was viewed in England, caused 
a general demand for repressive measures, and the 
five "intolerable acts" were passed and sent oversea 
to do the last irremediable mischief.^ Boston's port 

» R. I. Col. Records, VII., 81, 108. 

' Farrand, "Taxation of Tea," in Amer. Hist. Review, III., 269. 
' Macdonald, Select Charters, 337-356; Force, Am. Archives, 
4th series, I., 216, 



1774] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 137 

was closed until the town should pay for the tea. 
Massachusetts' charter was annulled, its town- 
meetings irksomely restrained, and its government 
so changed that its executive officers would all be 
under the king's control. Two other acts provided 
for the care and judicial privileges of the soldiers 
who soon came to enforce the acts. Finally, great 
offence was given the Protestant colonies by grant- 
ing religious freedom to the Catholics of Quebec, 
and the bounds of that colony were extended to the 
Ohio River, ^ thus arousing all the colonies claiming 
Western lands. Except in the case of Virginia, there 
was no real attack on their territorial integrity, but 
in the excitement there seemed to be. 

Some strong incentive for the colonies to act 
together had long been the only thing needed to send 
the flame of rebellion along the whole sea-coast. 
When the British soldiers began the enforcement of 
the punishment meted to Boston, sympathy and 
fear furnished the common bond. After several 
proposals of an intercolonial congress, the step was 
actually taken on a call from oppressed Massachu- 
setts (June 17, 1774).^ Delegates from every colony 
except Georgia met in Philadelphia in September, 
1774. Seven of the twelve delegations were chosen 
not by the regular assemblies, but by revolutionary 
conventions called by local committees; while in 

' "Quebec Act and the American Revolution," in Yale Review, 
August, 1895. 

^ Force, Am. Archives, 4th series, I., 421. 



138 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1775 

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, 
three of the remaining five states, the assembhes 
that sent the delegates were wholly dominated by 
the revolutionary element. Local committees may, 
therefore, be said to have created the congress, and 
they would now stand ready to enforce its will. 

The assembled congress adopted a declaration of 
rights, but their great work was the forming an 
American association to enforce a non-importation 
and non-consumption agreement.* Local committees 
were to see that all who traded with England or 
refused to associate were held up as enemies of their 
country. The delegates provided for a new congress 
in the following I\Lay. and adjourned. 

Meanwhile, General Gage and his "pretorian 
guard" in Boston were aiiministering the govern- 
ment of ^Massachusetts with noteworthy results. 
A general court of the colony was summoned by 
Gage, who. repenting, tried to put it off ; but it met, 
formed a provincial congress, and, settling down at 
Cambridge, governed the whole colony outside of 
Boston, It held the new royal govcmmont to be 
illegal, ordered the taxes paid to its own receiver in- 
stead of Gage's, and organized a militia. Gage at last 
determined to disarm the provincials. His raid to de- 
stroy the stores at Concord (April ip. 1775) resulted 
in an ignominious retreat and the loss of two hundred 
and seventy-three men. to say nothing of bringing 
sixteen thousand patriots swanning about Boston. 

* Macdonald, Select Charters. 356, 36a. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PROBLEM OF IMPERIAL ORGANIZATION 
(1775-1787) 

THE end of the war did not end America's trials. 
The next few years were crowded with per- 
plexities; men that could think were anxious and 
troubled. Before the people who had broken away 
from Britain and had announced their own political 
beliefs could take full advantage of the opportuni- 
ties lying at their door, the wreckage left by the 
war had to be cleared away; they had to find suit- 
able political organization, overcome the disastrous 
influence of civil commotion, look the toil of the 
future fairly in the face, and begin seriously to prac- 
tise the principles of self-government, which many 
were apt to forget were not far different from the 
principles of self-control. 

The Revolution, if correctly understood, was 
much more than a separation from Great Britain ; it 
was more even than the establishment of so-called 
free institutions as over against monarchical institu- 
tions. To understand the task of political and social 
organization, we must remember that the Revolu- 
tion had been a civil war. No notion could be 



I40 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1777 

more erroneous or lead us into greater difficulties 
in our endeavor to appreciate the trials that ensued 
after the war was over than the notion that the 
Revolution had been merely a contest between 
America and Great Britain, that it was a great pop- 
ular uprising of a united people indignant and 
righteously angered at the prospect of tyranny. 
As a matter of fact, while a majority of the Amer- 
icans sympathized with the so-called patriot cause, 
only a small minority were actively interested and 
ready really to sacrifice their material comfort for 
an ideal. A large number, almost equal to the en- 
thusiastic patriots, were stanch loyalists, willing 
to do service for George III., to fight, if need be, in 
his armies, to give up their property and go into 
exile rather than surrender the name of Englishmen 
or prove traitors to their king. A third large group, 
fond of the good things of this world and not anx- 
ious about the success of either side, had shown a 
readiness to drink British Madeira at Philadelphia 
or New York, or to sell their produce for bright Brit- 
ish guineas, while the American army, hungry and 
cold, ill-clad — if clad at all — were starving and 
shivering at Valley Forge or dying of small-pox at 
Morristown. 

An interesting glimpse of this Revolutionary 
struggle is obtained from Washington's letter to 
Congress,* in which he speaks of Howe's success in 
Pennsylvania (1777). Washington had been moving 

' Washington, Writings (Ford's ed.), VI., 80. 



1781] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 141 

through a country in which it was difficult for the 
Americans to gain intelligence because the people 
were "to a man disaffected," while forced marches 
and rapid movements of the troops were impossible 
because a great number of the soldiers were without 
shoes. Washington, not Howe, was in the enemy's 
country. It was, therefore, from the distressing in- 
fluences of civil strife that America had to free her- 
self in the days of readjustment after the peace, 
when the troops were withdrawn, the Continental 
army was disbanded, and the people were left to look 
in upon themselves and wonder what manner of folk 
they were. 

Theja^alists were many — perhaps nearly, if not 
quite, a third of the population.^ Many of them 
were, moreover, or had been when the war began, 
men of substance and of position. On the whole, 
they came from the conservative classes, who dis- 
liked rebellion for itself and because they had some- 
thing to lose. Men that were looking for a chance 
to wipe out their old debts and had hopes of getting 
something ahead in the general overturning were 
not apt to be Tories. The people that were banished 
from Boston were members of the old families of the 
commonwealth.^ Greene reported to Washington 
that two-thirds of the property in New York City 

'Van Tyne, Loyalists, 94-105; Tyler, "The Party of the 
Loyalists in the American Revolution," in Anter. Hist. Review, 
I., 27-29; Flick, Loyalism in New York, 182; Van Tyne, Ameri- 
can Revolution, chap. xiv. 

' Tyler, in Amur. Hist. Review, I., 31. 



142 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1775 

and its suburbs belonged to Tories,* and one is con- 
strained to feel that in the confiscation by which 
loyalists' property was taken during the war there 
was a tinge of more than patriotic enthusiasm or 
even of partisan hostility ; there was greed for the 
spoils of the enemy. 

We must not understand from this that the Tories 
were all educated gentlemen and the Whigs mis- 
creants and ruffians; but if we see aright the dif- 
ficulty of the situation after the peace, we must at 
least appreciate the fact that in the war there 
had been a great social upheaval, that many of the 
wisest, ablest, and most substantial citizens had 
been driven into exile, and that no country could 
afford to lose the services of such men as moved 
away to England or passed over into Nova Scotia or 
settled in Canada to be the Pilgrim Fathers of the 
Dominion — no country, above all, that was forced 
to establish lasting political institutions and to 
undertake a great constructive task that might 
well have proved too heavy for the most efficient and 
the most creative nation in the world. This ex- 
pulsion of tens of thousands of loyahsts was well 
likened by a contemporary to the expatriation of 
the Huguenots on the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes.^ From that expatriation France has not 
yet recovered. Could America easily get on with- 
out the one hundred thousand men, women, and 

* Washington, Writings (Sparks's ed.), TV., 86, n. 

* Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady (cd. of 1846), 283. 



1783] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 143 

children who were killed in the wars, died in prison, 
or suffered banishment because they had been 
faithful to the cause of King George? Could she 
prosper politically without the help of those dis- 
franchised Tories that survived the trials of the 
war and remained to face the ill-will of their neigh- 
bors? To a country, then, which had known the 
agony of civil strife, which had been confiscating 
the property of its own citizens, which had seen 
thousands of its prosperous people impoverished or 
driven across the seas, came the duty of finding 
stable, trustworthy, and free institutions for a vast 
territory. 

The political task that confronted the people 
when independence from Great Britain was declared 
was in its essence the same that had confronted the 
British ministry ten years before — the task of im- 
perial organization. Britain had been able to find 
no principles that suited the colonists or that in 
the long run suited herself. The learned Mansfield 
or the faithful Grenville could do no more than as- 
sert the sovereignty of Parliament and declare that 
all power rested at Westminster. The Americans 
were not content with this simple declaration of 
law; they insisted on other rights, on an imperial 
order in which not all legislative power was gathered 
at the centre. When at length independence came, 
when the colonies were states, and especially when 
the war was over, what was America to do ? Could 
the Americans, who had scolded England so roundly 



144 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1765 

and broken away from her control, find imperial 
organization themselves without giving up all they 
had contended for? Could they reconcile local 
liberty \\4th central authority and real unity ? The 
work was a momentous one, of great significance to 
mankind, and it must be done, if at all, by a dis- 
tracted country emerging from civil war. 

Though the Americans had been contending, as 
they claimed, for established English principles, the 
war had in part rested on theories of government 
and of society which, if carried to their logical 
conclusion, meant primeval confusion. The ulti- 
mate position of the Americans in their argimient 
with England in the years preceding the war had 
been based on "natural rights," on the assertion 
that there are certain inalienable rights wliich 
no government could take away, rights which had 
been reserved as untransferable when the individual 
entered society and when the social compact was 
formed. The notion that liberty and right existed 
before government was easily changed into the 
notion that government, and indeed all the con- 
ventionalities of society, had gro\vn at the expense 
of liberty and the right of the indi\'idual. In Tom 
Paine's Common Sense, the most popular book of that 
generation, this Revolutionary philosophy was ad- 
mirably set forth. In its pages one could read that 
government is a necessary evil, and that palaces 
of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of 
paradise. If men beHeved tliis, they naturally be- 



1783] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION i45 

lievcd that a return t(i nature would be a return to 
happiness; and if, beeause of sinful man, govern- 
ment, an evil in itself, was necessary, it should be 
looked on with suspicion and guarded with jealous 
care. Such philosophy, was of wide influence in 
that generation and the next. Even a man like 
Jefferson was ready to talk nonsense about fer- 
tilizing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, 
and about the advisability of occasional rebellions, 
which ought not to be too much discouraged.* In 
the days when such thoughts were current, it was 
difficult to argue for efficient government and to 
point to the necessity of punishment and restraint. 
The men of those days could not quite see that if 
the Revolutionary principles were made complete, 
if the popular institutions were established, if the 
people were to be the real rulers, there could be no 
antithesis between government and people, inas- 
much as the people were the government, the posses- 
sors of the final political authority ; what was called 
government was merely the servant of a power 
superior to itself. To limit this servant and to make 
it weak and ineffective was to limit the people. 
This fact was not comprehended ; it took time for the 
full significance of the democratic idea to come home 
to men. And this was natural in the light of the 
long struggle for liberty; it was natural, if it is 
true that the Revolution was but one of the great 
movements in English history for a freer life and 

* Jefferson, Writings (Ford's ed.), IV., 362. 



146 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1776 

for a freer expression of the individual. How 
could men at once realize that, if the circle was now 
complete, if they were now the government, there 
was no need to struggle against government? "It 
takes time," said Jay, " to make sovereigns of sub- 
jects." * But many there were besides who be- 
lieved in individualism pure and simple, the right 
of the individual to do as he chooses. They did not 
care where government rested; they wished them- 
selves and their neighbors let alone. All these 
influences were making, not for imperial organiza- 
tion, not for law and system, but for personal 
assertion, for confusion that might threaten the 
foundation of all reasonable order. If these in- 
fluences were overcome, it must be because the wise 
and the strong succeeded in winning control. 

During the war, it is true, the states had formed 
new state constitutions,^ and it will not do to under- 
estimate the importance of the fact that these funda- 
mental laws were made, and that the people dis- 
covered and began to make use of the constituent 
convention — this, after all, is the most significant fact 
of the American Revolution. But in a measure the 
theories of the day were a real source of danger even 
to the states themselves, and the time might come 
when the men in the individual states would anx- 
iously turn to national authority for relief. It was, 
moreover, much easier iov the people to allow the 

* T»'^y. Corrcsp. and Public Papers, III., ait. 
'Van Tyne, American Rcjolution, chap. ix. 



1783] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 147 

state governments to wield power than to grant any 
to the nation. The local authority was near at 
hand, and in its new dignity was not very different 
from the old colonial administration. The war had 
been begun against a general government; why 
should implicit obedience be paid to the Congress 
of the United States, clamoring for power and for 
taxes as George III. and Lord North had never 
dared to do ? 

So far we have seen several different circum- 
stances that must be taken into consideration in 
interpreting the task of the American people in the 
years of national readjustment: the harassing and 
demoralizing experiences of a war which was at 
once a civil war and a revolution; the banishment 
and voluntary emigration of thousands of its most 
intelligent and substantial citizens; the political 
thinking of the time, which the course of the war 
had intensified — thinking that, if allowed to fer- 
ment in shallow-pated citizens, might endanger the 
stability of society itself; and, lastly, the fact that 
the war had been waged to support local govern- 
ments against a general government. Amid all of 
these difficulties America was imperatively called 
upon to organize its empire, if we may use the word 
to convey the meaning of the vast territory stretch- 
ing from the St. Croix to the St. Mary's and west- 
ward to the Mississippi — an empire inhabited by 
thirteen distinct groups of people in large measure 
ignorant of the lives and thoughts of one another. 



148 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1776 

In si^h'iiii:;' this jm-(>1>Umii tlio rtiitod Slates was 
at oucc aiiKnl aiul IniuUMTil h\' its i;vo_v^raphii'al 
mako-up ami its lusliM\v. I uH\s;Taiiliically separated 
troin luirope by thousands ot" miles of spaee and 
inaiu' weeks ot" time, the Amerieans felt isokitod 
tVi>m the n^st ot" [\\c woiid. and nnist piMi"oi-ei> ha\e 
biHMi impi\>ssed with the tlunii^ht <''( a etunmon 
destiny; but si^parated as the states wiM'e tVcun iMie 
another, when the people wiM\> ihinkiuy; o( them- 
seKes and not ot" l'an-opi\ they tnvist ha\e fell their 
dilYeriMiees more keenl\- than their similarities. 
South Carolina was so remote fn^n X'irj^inia that wo 
niii^ht ahnost think o[ her as bekMigiui; to the West- 
lndiai\ i^Toup of ei^lonies rather than to the eonti- 
niMital. The Oeelaration i^'i Independenee was 
known in Paris almost as soon as in Chark^ston. 
The hardy Vai\kee seamen who InilTeted the wiuils 
oil stormy I la tt eras must ha\e felt tar from hi^ne 
when they sailed into the harbor oi \\'ilmini;ton or 
Saxamiah. A (u'ori^ian knew little oi New York 
ov Massaehusetts, LilV on tlie plantations of Vir- 
ginia was far dilTerent frmn life in the little 
settlements of New haii;land. When John Adams, 
le.ivinj.; his tireside in l>raintree, went to Philadelphia 
as a deU\i:jate in CiMij^jess. the. letters whieh he sent 
\iome were weleomed as tidinj^s from a " tar eoun- 
try." " 0( atTairs o'i Cieoi-;.;|i]a," wrote Madison to 
jetTersoti in 1780. "I kninv as little as o( those 
of Kamskatska." ' When we m\k\ to all this the 

» Madisoti. Wn'tiiiiis (Ilimfs cil.^. 11., jOi. 



J7H.JI I'KOI'.LICM Ol'^ ORGANIZA'IMON M9 

fact Ih.'it llic colonics W(;r(! established .il, 'liffcrcnt, 
limes and from different motives, and tli.it, climate, 
soil, and industrial life varied j^m'.atly from Maine to 
(ieorj^ia, we are so imj)ressed by the diversity that 
union seems almost beyond the verjjje of possibility. 
And yet political unity was a necessity; .'Uiy form of 
political order not expressinpj the fact of real inter- 
dci)endc;nce and essential oneness of ])urpos(r was 
insufficicint if America was to or^^ani/e; licr cmpin;. 
Without modern means of communication, with- 
out railroads or telej^raphs, the states were also 
without j^ood highways of any kind. The roarl 
l)(;tween Boston and New York was not very bad, 
but in the most favorable weather the traveller 
making the trip must spend four days in a clumsy, 
uncomfortable coach, giving uj) more tim(i and 
much more comfort than he woukl now expend 
in passing across the continent.' The highways of 
Pennsylvania were often almost im])assable, and 
travel on them was little less than misery. ''' South 
of the Potomac the roads were still worse; there 
even brirlges were a luxury. Even on the much- 
travelled route between the north and the south 
the mails were infreciuent. Three times a week 
throughout the summer they passed between Port- 
land, Maine, and Suffolk, Virginia, but from Suf- 



' BrissDt <]c Warville, Travels in America, I., 97; Quincy, Lijc 
uj Ju^iak (Juincy, 37. 

^"Letters oi I'hineas Bond," in Am. Hist. Assoc, Report, 
1896, p. 522; Pa. Archives, ist series, X., 129. 
11 



150 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1776 

folk southward only twice a week in the summer 
and once a week in winter. Inhabitants of towns 
out of the main course of travel were more isolated 
than are now secluded hamlets in the heart of the 
Rockies. Into the great west beyond the Appala- 
chian range a few courageous men had gone and 
established their homes; but this vast region was 
a wild and almost trackless forest. A man in the 
little village of Louisville was often ignorant for 
months at a time of what was going on at New 
York or Boston, knowing no more of the internal 
affairs of the sea-coast towns than " what our friends 
are about in the other world." * 

To such a people, then, thus distracted and thus 
divided, came the problem of imperial organization. 
One fact aided them materially: the states were 
alike in structure; they had the same political in- 
heritance; the fundamental ideas of English liberty 
and law, taking root in congenial soil, had grown 
strong in every section ; men in all the states thought 
in the same terms and used the same phrases. Even 
their Revolutionary philosophy with its notion of 
absolute rights was a product of English history. 
Moreover, events, relentless facts, were showing the 
way to sound union; there could be no real peace 
and prosperity till political organization was in 
harmony with industrial and social needs. If the 
people were reluctant, imion on a proper basis was 
to be established by "grinding necessity." 
* N. Y. Hist. Soc, Collections, 1878, p. 233. 



1781] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 151 

The important process of making state constitu- 
tions was pretty well completed four years after 
the Declaration of Independence, but the formation 
of a national system was not so simple. For some 
years after the Declaration the affairs of the Union 
were conducted by a Congress of delegates on whose 
discretion or authority there were no constitutional 
restraints ; hence Congress did, not what was needed 
to be done, but what it was able to do or thought it 
wise to attempt, at times showing energy and in- 
telligence, again sinking into sloth and incompetence. 
During these years America was acting under an 
unwritten constitution, and, in spite of the inability 
of Congress, establishing precedents of some weight 
and importance. 

On March i, 1781, Maryland, the last of the 
thirteen states, signed by its delegates the Articles 
of Confederation, and henceforward the powers of 
Congress were clearly outlined.^ The first form of 
imperial organization was that of a "perpetual 
Union," a "league of friendship" between states. 
To care for the interests of the Confederation, a 
Congress was provided, to be made up of delegates 
annually chosen in the states. Each delegation was 
entitled to one vote ; Rhode Island had as much in- 
fluence in the affairs of America as Massachusetts 
or Virginia. Congress had authority to decide on 
peace and war, to carry on hostilities, to manage 

' For the process of forming the Articles of Confederation, 
see Van Tyne, American Revolution, chap. xi. 



152 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1781 

all diplomatic matters, to build and equip a navy, 
to borrow money and emit bills of credit, to make 
requisitions on the states for men and money, to 
appoint naval officers and superior military officers, 
to establish and regulate post-offices, to determine 
the alloy and value of coin, and to perform some 
other duties supposed to be of general interest. 
This was a generous allotment of authority, but its 
exercise was carefully guarded, since no vote, except 
to adjourn from day to day, could be carried except 
by a majority of all the states, while the consent of 
nine states was required to carry any measure of 
special importance. Unless nine states agreed. Con- 
gress could not engage in war or enter into treaties 
or alliances, or coin money or borrow money, or make 
appropriations, or appoint a commander-in-chief, or, 
indeed, even determine on the sums of money for 
which it would ask the states. 

The better to secure mutual friendship and inter- 
course, it was especially provided that the free in- 
habitants of each state should be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
states. Sundry restraints were placed upon the 
states; they were not to enter into treaties, confed- 
erations or alliances, interfere in foreign affairs, or en- 
gage in war without the consent of Congress, unless 
actually invaded. These and similar prohibitions 
marked with some clearness the line of demarcation 
between the reserved power of the states and the 
authority granted to Congress. Congress was the 



1781] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION i53 

final resort on appeal in all disputes between the 
states, its authority to be exercised by the establish- 
ment of a special court or board of arbitration whose 
decision was decisive of the question at issue. The 
Articles were in many ways dissimilar to the state 
constitutions; in fact, there is no evidence that 
their framers intended to follow the examples of 
the states. There was no effort to establish a gov- 
ernment with distinct branches; all the authority 
granted was in the hands of Congress, which was, 
however, authorized to appoint an executive com' 
mittee to sit when Congress itself was not in session. 

This simple arrangement, a confederation of sov' 
ereign states, performing certain functions through 
a body of delegates, proved in the course of a short 
time so inadequate that it is easy to pass these 
Articles by with an amused smile at their utter un- 
fitness for the work at hand. As a matter of fact, 
they were in many respects models of what articles 
of confederation ought to be, an advance on previous 
instruments of like kind in the world's histor}^ 
Their Inadequacy arose from the fact that a mere 
confederacy of sovereign states was not adapted to 
the social, political, and industrial needs of the time. 

In one important particular the Articles were of 
profound significance: with remarkable care they 
separated the particular or local powers from those of 
general character ; and let us notice that on the wis- 
dom and the accuracy with which this division is 
made must depend the permanence of any plan of 



154 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1781 

imperial organization. Under no conditions, of 
course, would the states surrender all political au- 
thority to any central government; but by the 
Articles of Confederation they granted nearly every 
power that was really of a general or national char- 
acter. Two powers that the central authority much 
needed were withheld: the power to raise money 
and the power to regulate commerce — the very 
ones about which there had been so much dis- 
cussion before the war. "Let the king ask for 
money," the colonists had said to Parliament, "and 
we will pay it." This plan of imperial organization 
was to prove a very lame one when applied on this 
side of the Atlantic; Congress was to try this plan, 
to call for money, plead for it, implore attention, 
and remain penniless. But few years were needed 
to show the necessity for general control of com- 
merce if the Confederation were to be more than a 
name, or if the states were not to change from rivals 
into open enemies. In spite of all this, as far as the 
mere division of powers was concerned, the Articles 
were not far from perfection, and in any plan for a 
broader and better system this allotment of au- 
thority would be of the utmost service. 

Of course the Congress of the Confederation, made 
up of delegates from states, could not pass effective 
laws or enforce its orders. It could ask for money but 
not compel payment ; it could enter into treaties but 
not enforce their stipulations; it could provide for 
raising of armies but not fill the ranks ; it could bor- 



1781] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 155 

row money but take no proper measures for repay- 
ment; it could advise and recommend but not com- 
mand. In other words, with some of the outward 
seemings of a government, and with many of its 
responsibiHties, it was not a government. 

The Articles, as we have seen, provided for no 
executive department. They did provide for the 
appointment of a member of Congress to preside 
over its sessions ; but in fear of kingly authority, it 
was stipulated that no one person should serve as 
president more than one year in any term of three 
years. They also provided for the appointment of 
civil officers for managing the general affairs of the 
United States under the direction of Congress. And 
yet the course of the war had already proved how 
unfit for general administrative duties were the 
whole body of delegates or committees of members,* 
and as a result a movement for the establishment 
of executive departments began even before the Ar- 
ticles went into effect. 

The office of postmaster-general, an inheritance 
from the colonial days, existed from the beginning 
of the war. In the early part of 1781 the offices 
of secretary for foreign affairs, superintendent of 
finance, secretary at war, and secretary of marine 
were created.* To the second position Robert Morris, 



* Guggenheirner, " The Development of the Executive Depart- 
ments, 1775 -1 789, "in Jameson, Essays in the Const. Hist, of the 
U.S. 

^ Journals of Congress,]a.n\\a.vy 10 and February 7, 1781. 



156 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1782 

of Pennsylvania, whose knowledge of business and 
finance had already been of great service to the 
country, was appointed. After considerable delay, 
caused by the customary factional controversies be- 
tween the cliques of Congress, General Benjamin 
Lincoln was made secretary at war. He did not 
take the office until January, 1782. Nothing of con- 
sequence was done with the department of marine, 
probably because of the old difficulty of selecting 
anybody that would suit the wrangling factions, 
and the whole department was turned over to the 
superintendent of finance, who already had more 
than any one could do in managing the distracted 
finances of the Confederation. Robert R. Living- 
ston, of New York, was made foreign secretary, 
but retained his position only till June, 1783. He 
was succeeded the next year by John Jay, who 
showed skill in handling the intricate diplomatic 
questions of the time, and perhaps even more wis- 
dom in impressing on Congress the importance of 
his position. By insisting on the dignity of his 
office and by making use of its privileges, he 
brought it into prominence and helped to give it 
a real value and significance.' Inadequate as the 
Articles were, constitutional organs were gradually 
growing. Administrative failures and experiments 
were showing the way to a more effective and sat- 
isfactory system. 

• Jameson, Essays in the Const. Hist, of the U. S., i6i-i6r;. 



1788] PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION 157 

[Editorial Note 

In a volume dealing with social and economic 
aspects it is necessary to refer the reader to Pro- 
fessor McLaughlin's The Confederation and the Con- 
stitution for an account of "The Critical Period" — 
so called by Fiske (i 783-1 789), which included organ- 
zation, the government of the Confederation; the 
Constitutional convention, and ratification. Profes- 
sor McLaughlin's account of Imperial Organization 
which has been quoted here shows "the possibilities 
of national government in view of the character and 
political aptitude of the people." After developing 
his history of the steps leading to the Constitutional 
convention and the adoption of the Constitution he 
closes his book with the following summary:] 

ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION 

In the twelve years that followed the Declara- 
tion of Independence the American people had 
accomplished much. The war was carried to a 
successful conclusion; the settlements stretching 
along the Atlantic coast came into the possession 
of a wide territory extending over the mountains 
to the Mississippi; state constitutions, laying down 
broad principles of liberty and justice, were formed 
on lines of permanence; a new colonial system for 
the organization and government of the great west 
was formulated, a system that was to be of incal- 
culable value in the process of occupying the con- 
tinent and building up a mighty republic; new 



158 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1788 

settlements that showed capacity for self-govern- 
ment and growth were made in the wilderness be- 
yond the Alleghenies. And, finally, a federal Con- 
stitution was formed, having for its purpose the 
preservation of local rights, the establishment of 
national authority, the reconciliation of the partic- 
ular interests and the general welfare. In solving 
the problem of imperial organization, America made 
a momentous contribution to the political knowl- 
edge of mankind. 

With the adoption of the national Constitution 
the first period of the Constitutional history of the 
United States was closed. A suitable and appro- 
priate national organization was now established. 
There remained questions to be answered by the 
coming decades : Was the system suited to the needs 
of an expanding people? Was the distribution of 
authority between the national government and the 
states so nicely adjusted that the complicated 
political mechanism would stand the strain of local 
interest and national growth? Would the people 
who had founded a national government grow so 
strongly in national spirit and patriotism that there 
would be a real bond of affection and of mutual 
good- will, supplementing and strengthening the 
formal ties of the law? 



CHAPTER IX 

THE STATE OF SOCIETY 
(1789-1800) 

THE independence of the United States caused 
the severance of many European bonds, and 
this reacted on American life. Government officials, 
ministers of religion, lawyers, physicians, managers 
of English investments in the colonies, and many 
other classes of leading men in colonial life had been 
largely drawn from England; and this influx now 
ceased, except for a number of influential English 
and Irish journalists. America was thrown more 
than ever before on itself for leaders and for ideals. 
There resulted an intensifying of distinctively Amer- 
ican traits and a corresponding loss of cosmopoli- 
tanism.^ 

Three other notable influences ought to be men- 
tioned, (i) Democracy had received a wonderful 
impetus. The influence of the "well born" was 
lessened and that of the " filthy democrats" was in- 
creased. Political life thus became cruder and more 

^ A variety of illustrative material on the conditions of the 
time may be found in Hart, Am. Hist, told by Contemporaries, 
III., §§ 10-36. 



i6o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1789 

passionate, while inequalities began to disappear and 
the educative function of self-government was stim- 
ulated. (2) Our dependence on English constitu- 
tional liberty was modified. In the struggles of 
the colonists against their governors, and in the rev- 
olutionary debates as well, the appeal had always 
been to the chartered rights of Englishmen. Now 
the rights of man became the ideal, and precedent 
played a smaller role in public discussions. Amer- 
icans were full of a notion that they were intrusted 
with ideals different from, and better than, those of 
other nations. They believed themselves pioneers 
in political philosophy. (3) American private law 
began to separate itself from English statute and 
precedent. The common law continued to be ob- 
served; but a body of American statutes and de- 
cisions could not but give the content of the law a 
strong tendency towards those distinctive forms 
which at the end of a century are easily recognized 
as American products. 

Confidence in the future of his country was a 
supreme trait of an American in 1789. To immense 
physical resources there was added in his mind great 
human capacity to develop them. To utilize fer- 
tile lands, to build up manufactures, to construct 
means of transportation, to develop the organization 
of commerce, and to take care of public and private 
credit seemed to him the things first needed in our 
social progress. Next to these he placed what he 
would have called the ornaments of life — education, 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY i6i 

religion, art, literature, science, municipal comforts, 
and many other things which have become important 
in modern society. To the former group of forces, 
therefore, the men who saw Washington and Adams 
in the presidency, gave most of their attention. It 
was a day of material development. 

In 1790, when the first census was taken, the pop- 
ulation was 3,929,214, and in 1800 it was 5,308,483. 
About one-fifth of each number were negroes, and 
about half of the total was found on either side 
of the Potomac. The increase of population in this 
first census period was due chiefly to births ; for im- 
migration had been cut off by the Revolution, and 
although many efforts were made to attract it again 
with the return of peace, the estimated annual im- 
migration was not more than four thousand persons, 
and it was not considerable till after the War of 
1 81 2. The outbreak of general war in Europe in 
1793 was enough to accoimt for this state of af- 
fairs.^ 

About ninety-five per cent, of the inhabitants 
lived in villages or the open country. The Atlantic 
coast region was one vast stretch of forests and farms. 
On the river-banks near the coast, and in the south 
in particular, much of the land had been cleared for 
cultivation ; in the interior the cleared patches were 
smaller. Everywhere the inhabitants were looking 
for the best lands — for river "low-ground" for the 
great farmers, creek "low-ground" for the medium 

* Blodget, Economica (ed. of 1806), 75. 



i62 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1789 

farmers, and the meadows which lay between the 
upland hills for the small farmers. 

The land which it did not pay to clear was left to 
the dominion of the forest. In the broad flat plains 
of Virginia and the Carolinas, where rivers and their 
tributaries are less abundant than in the narrow 
plain of the north, the forest had been but slightly 
subdued. Great stretches of pine land frowned on 
the traveller, where the cultivation of cotton was 
destined soon to work many changes. Through 
these great forests the roads were few and badly 
constructed. The people who lived in the clearings 
along them were too poor to build good roads, and 
the infrequent trips they made to the world beyond 
them did not justify the necessary outlay. Their lives 
were isolated, natural, and free. They were poorly 
educated, ignorant of the problems of the world, and 
fiercely democratic. These people far outnumbered 
the wealthy farmers along the rivers. They were 
the backbone of the democracy of the country. 

The great planters of the south dominated the 
communities in which they lived; they were most 
numerous along the coasts where the lands were 
richest. They were people of education, and their 
ideals were broader than those of the men of the 
interior. Many of them were Republicans on phil- 
osophical grounds and because they favored France ; 
but the majority were Federalists. All of them, 
whatever their politics, were aristocrats in their 
social ideals. 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY 163 

In the middle states the medium class and small 
farmers constituted the mass of the population. 
They were less isolated than the dwellers in the in- 
terior parts of the south, for the forest had yielded 
more of itself to the aggression of the settler. Dis- 
tances from the large seaports were not so great, and 
roads were tolerable. Education was somewhat 
more advanced, churches were more numerous, 
ideals were less provincial. 

In New England the forest had disappeared to a 
much larger extent, chiefly because of the lumber 
and ship-building industries. Villages were grouped 
along the edges of the bays, sounds, and various 
small streams ; and around them lay the little farms 
upon which, with much labor, the food of the com- 
munity was raised. The country was thickly set- 
tled compared with other sections, roads were better, 
houses were more attractively built, and the edu- 
cational spirit was more generally developed than 
anywhere else in the country. 

Towns were placed chiefly on the sea-coast and at 
the heads of navigation of the rivers. Commerce 
was their only support; for the days of the manu- 
facturing towns had not yet come. The larger 
places attracted the foreign commerce. The smaller 
towns looked to the larger ones, sending thither the 
products which they had gathered from the sur- 
rounding communities and distributing the imported 
goods which they received from the seaports. 

Most of the towns were north of the Potomac. 



i64 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1789 

In 1790 Richmond, the largest town in Virginia, 
numbered 3761 ; and Norfolk, Petersburg, and Al- 
exandria were the only other towns in the state 
with a population of two thousand or more. In 
North Carolina not a town of that size existed. In 
South Carolina, Charleston had a population of 
about fifteen thousand, and was the centre of a 
large trade in rice and slaves. It was a residence 
town for most of the wealthy eastern planters, and 
because of this and its large commercial interests it 
was strongly Federal. Savannah was still a small 
place. The interior of Georgia was undeveloped, 
but with the cultivation of cotton came a great im- 
pulse to progress, which soon gave the state's best 
seaport a flourishing trade. 

The northern cities in 1790 were led by Phila- 
delphia with a population of forty-two thousand. 
It was a wealthy centre of business, and drew its 
sustenance from the rich farming region of central 
and eastern Pennsylvania. The great demand for 
American grain while the European nations were 
struggling in war gave a remarkable stimulus to 
the commerce of Philadelphia. The fact that it 
was the home of the United States Bank made it a 
financial centre ; and all combined to give it a rapid 
growth, so that in 1800 its population was seven- 
ty thousand. New York, next in size, rose from 
thirty-two thousand in 1790 to sixty thousand in 
1800. This rapid progress indicates the state of 
development in the interior of New York state. 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY 165 

For a long time this region was held back from the 
grasp of the settler through an unwillingness to 
dispossess the Iroquois ; but that difficulty was now 
overcome. Great land companies acquired the cen- 
tral parts of the state, immigrants were turning 
thither, and their wants were supplied by the city, 
finely placed at the mouth of the Hudson. Boston, 
long one of the most remarkable of colonial cities, 
showed signs of lagging. Its population increased 
from eighteen thousand in 1790 to twenty-five 
thousand in 1800. This is accounted for partly be- 
cause of the restrictions brought about by the Revo- 
lution, and partly because it had no such monopoly 
of trade in its neighborhood as Philadelphia and 
New York. Its opportunity came when it became 
the fiscal centre of New England manufacturing; 
but the day for that had not yet arrived. One of 
the remarkable features of town development in 
the period was the growth of Baltimore. Long a 
sleepy colonial community, it had suddenly awak- 
ened to great activity. Its population in 1790 was 
thirteen thousand ; and in 1800, through the develop- 
ment of the Susquehannah Valley, it had reached 
twenty-six thousand five hundred. In size and in 
trade it then surpassed Boston. 

The largest state of all was Virginia, with a popu- 
lation in 1790 of 747,000. After her came Penn- 
sylvania with 434,000, North Carolina with 393,000, 
Massachusetts with 378,000, and New York with 
340,000. Virginia's preponderating size had very 
12 



1 66 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1789 

much to do with her large influence in the Revolu- 
tion and in the struggle for the adoption of the 
Constitution; she lacked only eighty thousand of 
having, in 1790, as many inhabitants as all the 
New England states which joined in the adoption of 
the Constitution. The financial policy of Hamilton 
combined the commercial states in behalf of their 
own interests. Virginia was left out of this move- 
ment, and it bore hard on her spirit to see the sceptre 
of power taken from her hand. Placed in opposition, 
she became the leader of a combination of agricult- 
ural states which at length managed to get control 
of the government and to rule it for many years 
with as little regard for the interests of commerce 
as their opponents had felt with regard to agri- 
culture. 

The transportation of heavy articles was confined 
chiefly to water-routes. At the head of navigation 
on each river a small town would be found, whence 
roads ran into the interior. A few of them stretched 
away to and beyond the Alleghanies into the western 
wilderness. The advantages of water - transporta- 
tion turned the attention of the men of progress to 
building canals, of which few were fairly begun by 
the end of the century. 

Travellers usually went by stage-coach. Where 
the country was thickly settled they might travel as 
rapidly as in the rural sections of Europe. From 
Bangor to Baltimore they could make four miles 
an hour. South of the latter point the roads were 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY 167 

bad and conveyances were uncertain. The coaches 
were merely large wagons, with high sides and 
canopies supported by upright beams. If rain fell, 
heavy curtains of leather were hung up, much to the 
discomfort of the occupants who must steam within 
the coach till the rain ceased. 

From a day's jolting in such a vehicle one came 
at length to an inn. If he were fastidious enough 
to ask for a room to himself he was received with 
astonishment. He soon learned to consider himself 
fortunate if he had a bed to himself. Many of the 
inns had large rooms with from six to ten beds in 
them. European travellers generally complained 
loudly of the fare at the inns, where fried bacon and 
corn -bread were served daily. ^ These conditions 
have survived till the present in the most isolated 
portions of the country. At long intervals good 
inns were encountered, and most of them were in 
New England, but in the larger towns accommoda- 
tions were better. Here the tavern was giving way 
to the modern hotel, modelled after European es- 
tablishments. Travellers from abroad found them 
convenient and comfortable, and to the Americans 
they seemed splendid. 

The manner of life was hearty and natural. People 
of means lived in comfortable houses; poor people 
occupied the rude structures which had characterized 
frontier life in the seventeenth century. The plant- 

^ Brissot de Warville, Travels (ed. of 1792), 123; cf. McMaster, 
United States, II., 562-564; Weld, Travels (London ed.), 35, 84. 



1 68 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCEvS [1789 

ers of the south sought to reproduce the life of Eng- 
Hsh country gentlemen, and the wealthy merchants 
of the north imitated the manners they had seen or 
heard about in London and Paris. The old colonial 
usages were preserved by those who had the means ; 
but the sudden accumulation of wealth in the towns 
brought many new families into prominence, and 
manners were a little less formal. . 

In New England, Puritan morals ruled social inter- 
course. Life was regular and recreation was sim- 
ple. Sleighing, riding, dancing, shooting at a mark, 
draughts, and such innocent amusements were con- 
sidered proper. The boys played football, quoits, 
and cricket, and everybody skated in season. The 
theatre was not allowed in Boston till 1793. 

In the south, amusements were more unrestrained. 
Horse-racing had long been a favorite sport and cock- 
fighting was general. It was at this time that the 
famous stud "Diomed" was imported into Virginia; 
his offspring became famous on many a track in that 
and adjoining states. One of them was Andrew 
Jackson's famous "Truxton," long the king of the 
Tennessee turf. To own a champion race-horse was 
to give a man as much renown in his community as 
to win the Derby in England. Charleston was a 
famous centre for horse-racing. Its "Jockey Club" 
was a leading social organization. The habit of living 
away from their plantations brought many wealthy 
and refined people to the town. Nowhere else in the 
south was there so much wealth and good breeding. 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY 169 

The most universal phase of thought at this peri- 
od was rehgion. In New England and among the 
masses of the middle and southern states it was the 
supreme authority in conduct; but many of the 
planters of the south and some of the more intelligent 
classes elsewhere had accepted the ideas of French 
scepticism. In the villages of New England the 
Congregational minister was still the most influential 
person. He ruled the conduct of the town, censored 
its manners, and did not hesitate to interfere in its 
politics. Thomas Jefferson, whom the orthodox 
freely denounced as an infidel, had much reason to 
complain of the political activity of the New Eng- 
land ministry. Unitarianism, however, was begin- 
ning to undermine its domination, and the trend of 
society towards wealthy classes was working for the 
progress of the Episcopal church. 

In the south the latter church, on the contrary, was 
losing ground ; it was disliked because it had been the 
established church in several colonies, because many 
of its ministers had proved themselves Tories in the 
Revolution, and because it was in close alliance with 
the aristocracy. It had but recently reorganized 
itself on an American basis, it had lost much from 
the defection of the planters to scepticism, and it 
was in severe straits in many southern communities. 
Other churches in the south were striving to adapt 
themselves to new conditions and to recover from 
the disorganization which followed the war. 

At this favorable juncture there appeared in the 



lyo SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1784 

country a new church which was destined to have a 
powerful influence on reHgion there. The followers 
of Wesley had hardly got a foothold in the United 
States before the Revolution interrupted their prog- 
ress. But in 1784 they organized a separate Amer- 
ican body with authority from their founder. They 
appealed to the vast middle class of people; they 
caught the wasting fragments of other bodies ; they 
gave a democratic fire to their preaching ; they en- 
dured all manner of hardship in order to penetrate 
the vast upland forest region of the south and west ; 
and thus they laid the foundations of a great move- 
ment which has exerted a powerful influence on the 
life of America. This success was largely due to the 
activity of Bishop Francis Asbury, a man whose 
perseverance, zeal, and devotion have suggested a 
comparison with another Francis who carried light 
to the dark places of the earth during the Middle 
Ages.* 

The period from 1789 to 1801 was not character- 
ized by intellectual progress. Education made little 
advance, and literature was all but dead. The after- 
effects of war and the tendency for all energies to run 
into physical recuperation were the chief causes. In 
1800 the Harvard faculty consisted of the president, 
three professors, and four tutors. In 1797, Bishop 
Madison, whose vacant parishes had caused him to 
suspend his episcopal functions and become presi- 
dent of William and Mary College, was teaching a 

' See Asbury, Journal, passim. 



i8oi] STATE OF SOCIETY 171 

group of barefooted boys.* In literature the group 
known as "the Hartford Wits" were most distin- 
guished. Perhaps the best poetry of the day was 
Freneau's. 

The most significant social movement of the period 
was the extension of the frontier beyond the moun- 
tains, which began before the Revolution, but after 
1789 it proceeded rapidly. In 1790 the total pop- 
ulation of Kentucky, Tennessee, and the north- 
west was 109,000; in 1800 it was 377,000. Two 
roads led settlers from the east thither — one 
through western Pennsylvania by wagon to Pitts- 
burg and thence by flat-boat down the Ohio, the 
other by wagon-road through southwestern Virginia 
to the Holston Valley and thence down the Ten- 
nessee River. 

The Ohio was already bordered with towns. From 
Pittsburg floating westward one came to Wheeling, 
Marietta, Belpre, Gallipolis, Limestone, Columbia, 
Newport, Cincinnati, and Louisville. Farther down 
on the Mississippi were New Madrid and Natchez. 
Louisville had once been important because Fort 
Jefferson, which was placed here, afforded protection 
against the Indians ; but the march of settlement had 
removed all danger from that source, and the chief 
significance of the place arose from the fact that it 
was placed at the rapids of the Ohio. Cincinnati, on 
the north side of the river, looked out into hostile 
territory, till Wayne's victory in 1794 removed that 

'Adams, United States, T., 77, 136. 



172 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1789 

danger. In 1795 came the treaty with Spain, by 
which the navigation of the Mississippi was secured. 
Nothing now stood in the way of the dreams of the 
westerners. Whatever might trouble the east, they 
had the simple task of developing the vast country 
which was opened to them. The confidence and 
tumultuous joy with which they proceeded marked 
the future character of the people. Never did 
American frontier shift more quickly and happily 
into civilized communities than in the rich plains on 
each side of the Ohio. The creation of three states 
and three territories between 1789 and 1800 marked 
the future lines of national development. In 1791, 
Vermont was admitted into the Union, and in 1792, 
Kentucky. In 1796, Tennessee knocked at the door, 
but the moment was inopportune for her ambition. 
A close presidential election was about to be decided, 
and it was pretty certain that she would vote with the 
Republicans. The Federalists, therefore, challenged 
her right to become a state. For several weeks they 
kept her outside, but on the last day of the session 
they relented and she was admitted. In 1798 the 
region between Tennessee and Florida was set apart 
as a territory. The lower part of it was still claimed 
by Georgia, but negotiations were about to be begun 
by which that matter was adjusted in 1802 ; and in 
1800 a second act of Congress created a legislature 
and otherwise completed the government of Missis- 
sippi territory.* In 1800 the old Northwest Terri- 
* U. S. Statutes at Large, II., 69; Riley, Mississippi, 94, 97. 



iSoi] STATE OF SOCIETY i73 

tory was divided preparatory to the admission of 
Ohio, and the immense western portion was called 
Indiana/ 

• On the later history of the west, see Charming, Jeffersonian 
S y stem, chsLp-Vn.; Babcock, Am. Nationality, chap, xv.; Turner, 
New West, passim, {Am. Nation, XII., XIII., XIV.). 



CHAPTER X 

THE RESULTS OF WAR 
(1815) 

WHEN measured by any standard of material or 
immediate advantage, the results of the War 
of 181 2 were all negative. For two years and a half 
the United States had waged war upon land and 
upon sea, yet had not added a square mile of territory 
nor a ton to her commerce ; she had not settled one 
dispute as to boundaries nor obtained definite recog- 
nition for a single right for which she had contended. 
On the other hand, the losses of men, money, and 
property were positive and distinct, while the de- 
rangement of the finances was not outgrown for 
some years. But however great the material losses, 
they were temporary and soon forgotten. The im- 
material or spiritual results upon the nation and 
national policy were not so immediately obvious, , 
but in reality they were second only to those of the 
Revolution : the first war segregated the materials for 
an independent nation; the second gave them new 
form and effective unity. 

■ The cost of the war in men, as wars go, was mod- 
erate. The population of the country was about 
eight and a quarter millions, yet the effectives in 



iSi2] RESULTS OF WAR 175 

the army never exceeded thirty thousand, and the 
number actually engaged in any one battle never 
reached four thousand. The number killed in battle 
was estimated to be about fifteen hundred, the total 
of killed and wounded in land battles not far from 
five thousand, and the grand total of losses, includ- 
ing prisoners, nine thousand seven hundred.* The 
most liberal estimate of the loss of men, in battle on 
sea and land, in camp, in hospital, and in prisons, 
places it at thirty thousand. In other words, the 
loss of men could not have exceeded two per cent, 
of the military population, a loss which seems al- 
most insignificant when compared with South Caro- 
lina's sacrifice of twenty-five per cent, of her military 
population during the Civil War. 

In terms of money, the cost of the war was about 
two hundred million dollars, which cannot be con- 
sidered exceedingly burdensome. The issue of bonds 
and treasury notes had added over eighty millions 
to the previous debt, which thus rose to one hundred 
and twenty-seven millions, or about fifteen dollars 
a head for the population, as against about twenty 
dollars a head in 1791.^ Had the currency been in 
good order and taxation equalized, no one would 
have complained of the burden of the federal debt. 

The people felt the war most severely in the high 
prices of such commodities as groceries and iron, 
and in the low prices of the staple products like 

' Niles' Register, X., 154. 

2 Dallas, Report, in Am. State Paps., Finance, VIII., 8. 



176 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1812 

wheat, flour, tobacco, and cotton, for which there 
was little or no market while the war lasted. The 
extent of these difficulties was illustrated by the 
sudden reversal of conditions after peace was pro- 
claimed, when the price of sugar was cut in two 
and the price of flour rose fifty per cent.^ The fig- 
ures of the export trade of the country told the same 
story: 181 1, forty-five million dollars; 181 3, twenty- 
five million dollars; 1814, seven million dollars. 
New England suffered least, because the British 
in the early stages of the war refrained from har- 
assing that section, and because the New-England- 
ers defied the laws of the United States by trading 
with the armies of the enemy on the Canadian 
frontier and in Maine, and by taking advantage of 
British permits for trading at sea. Yet Boston's 
trade in foreign products, first imported, and then 
exported to Europe, fell from nearly six million 
dollars in 1 8 1 1 , to slightly more than three hundred 
thousand dollars in 1813, Virginia, on the other 
hand, suffered most from lack of market for her flour 
and for her tobacco, which, Jefferson declared, "is 
not worth the pipe it is smoked in," Coasting-trade 
was practically suspended and land transportation 
so difficult that flour, in August, 181 3, was worth 
$4,50 a barrel in Richmond and $11,87 i^ Boston.^ 



* Adams, United States, IX., 61. 

' Jefferson, Worfes (Washington's ed.). VI., 398; Niles' Regis- 
ter, v., 41, gives a very valuable table of prices current, showiiig 
prices in cities from Boston to New Orleans. 



i8i4] RESULTS OF WAR 177 

Considering the extent of the American seaboard 
and the lack of provision for defence, it is rather 
surprising that the United States escaped with so 
little damage to her coasts and cities. Washington 
was the only city of importance that suffered se- 
verely, while the shores of Chesapeake Bay and of 
Georgia, and the Niagara frontier, were the only 
regions plundered. The commercial and shipping 
interests were hardly in a different situation after 
the war began from that in which they had been for 
the greater part of the preceding five years. Their 
losses probably were no greater by capture in war 
than they had been by French sequestration and 
English prize courts. At the Boston docks in Sep- 
tember, 18 13, two hundred and forty-nine sea-going 
vessels were lying idle, ninety - one being of the 
largest class. When the war was ended, one hun- 
dred and forty -four vessels sailed from Boston 
within a month, while the entries into Charleston, 
South Carolina, in three weeks of April, 18 15, showed 
one hundred and fifty -eight vessels exclusive of 
coasters. That the year 181 5 did bring great re- 
lief to American commerce is undeniable, but it 
cannot safely be asserted that this relief was a 
result of the war, though Clay, in a fine frenzy, in 
181 3, had said that the United States was "fight- 
ing for FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS." The 

rise of manufacturing as one of the results of the 
war on commerce between 1806 and 18 12, and 
of the war of battalions and of vessels between 



178 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1815 

181 2 and 18 1 5, will be treated at length in another 
chapter/ 

After the war and the peace of Ghent, rather than 
because of these events, the United States was in a 
new sense free to work out her destinies. By a 
stroke of good-fortune and a rare combination of 
circumstances in Europe and America, comparable 
with those which existed in 1783 and 1793, the 
United States was free from entangling connections 
with England or France and from subserviency to 
their animosities. Save for the brief period between 
1789 and 1793, she had known no such freedom 
before. Old things had passed away — questions of 
neutral rights, impressments, embargoes, orders in 
council, French decrees, Napoleonic treachery. The 
new world was to be a domestic world. Its ques- 
tions would be too big for the states to solve alone ; 
national settlement and national action would be re- 
quired on such issues as the currency, banking, the 
tariff, internal improvements, public lands, the ex- 
tension of slavery, immigration, and the development 
of the west. 

All but unconsciously the nation at the close of the 
war heard and obeyed the call to face about. Hith- 
erto it had looked towards the sea ; for years it had 
scanned the horizon anxiously, lest the coming ship 
should be unfriendly or the bearer of ill tidings 

• Mahan, "War of 1812," in Scrthner's Mag., XXXVI., 495- 
407; C\a.y, Speeches (Colton's ed., 1857), I., 70; IngersoU, Second 
War, 2d series, II., 360. 



1815] RESULTS OF WAR 179 

for merchant and statesman. Now its face was 
set towards the west and the frontier, of which the 
inimitable possibiUties were beginning to dawn upon 
the national consciousness, as they had been borne 
in upon Washington and Jefferson in the days of 
the fathers. The breezy exuberance and the high 
optimism of the first products of this western life had 
been felt with vague and uncertain forebodings by 
the leaders of the old school, when the "war hawks" 
took it upon themselves in 181 1 and 181 2 to settle for 
the nation the long-threshed question of peace or war. 
Now that the war was over, the same energy and 
optimism were to be devoted freely for a generation 
to the new problems. Surely in land areas and in pol- 
itics there was to be a new earth if not a new heaven. 
In dealing with these new affairs, or old affairs on 
a vaster scale, the ideal and spirit of the nation were 
to be of vital importance. There was no body of 
traditions to guide, no solid backing of experience 
to which to appeal, no adequate conception of the 
magnificence of the future for which the foundations 
must be deeply laid. Experimentation, reorganiza- 
tion, readjustment, expansion — these were the proc- 
esses by which the youthful fibre of the republic 
was to be hardened for its ever-enlarging work in 
the world. "We are great," exclaimed Calhoun in 
1816, "and rapidly — I was about to say fearfully — 
growing. This is our pride and danger, our weak- 
ness and our strength." * 

' Annals of Cong., 14 Cong., 2 Sess., 853. 



i8o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1811 

The consciousness of nationality which came out 
of the second war with Great Britain was the chief 
poHtical result, the one most far-reaching in its ef- 
fects. Before the war the alignment of parties was 
determined quite as much by the sympathies of the 
voter with England or with France as by his attitude 
towards the Constitution or towards the rights of the 
states. The British party (Jefferson's Anglomen) 
and the French party (the Federalists' Mobocrats), 
could not, of course, change all their stripes in a 
single five years; but common pride in the navy 
and its achievements, exultation in the peace which 
brought with it such immediate prosperity, and 
the fact that the Republicans of 181 5 had ab- 
sorbed a good number of Federalist principles in 
their fourteen years of power, tended to soften, if not 
to obliterate, party lines. 

Up to the declaration of war, the United States 
was practically still in colonial relation to Europe, 
and was treated accordingly by Great Britain and 
France. The war in America and the closing of an 
era in Europe changed all this, and made steady 
progress in nationalism possible. The narrowness 
of the escape from exactly the opposite condition — 
the collapse of the national government in 181 5 — 
has not been given proper emphasis. The historian 
who begins to spin from the distaff of what might 
have been, may spin forever ; but it seems clear that 
Madison's administration, and with it the fate of the 
federal government, was in the balance in 181 5. 



1815] RESULTS OF WAR 181 

Men waited anxiously for news from New Orleans, 
anticipating defeat for Jackson at the hands of the 
veterans from the Continental wars ; they were pre- 
pared to learn from the next packet from Europe 
that negotiations at Ghent had failed ; the committee 
from the Hartford Convention, with its ominous sug- 
gestions, was already in Washington to treat with 
Congress and the administration. The shock of 
severe defeat at New Orleans, or complete rupture at 
Ghent, might have loosed even the slender ties hold- 
ing the administration together, and sent the frag- 
ments of the discredited government flying from the 
capitol just as the march of the British had dispersed 
the president and his cabinet in the preceding sum- 
mer. With victory favoring the United States at 
Ghent and at the mouth of the Mississippi, the 
Federalists might well believe that the stars in their 
courses fought for the Republicans; for it seemed 
that no degree of incapacity or imbecility in the 
government and no excess of incompetency in its 
generals could overbalance good fortune, the fortune 
of peace. 

The government and party thus saved had come 
into power by the " revolution of 180 1," strongly em- 
phasizing democratic principles, state rights, and 
strict construction of the Constitution; it emerged 
from the war in 181 5 greatly changed, if not greatly 
chastened, by fourteen years of experience in ad- 
ministration, including three years of war. Every 
deviation from the strict principles of 1801 had been 

13 



i82 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1811 

in the direction of nationalism — the purchase of 
Louisiana, the embargo, the seizure of West Florida, 
and the imposition of a direct tax along with the 
revival of excises. Hamilton himself would have 
hesitated to take some of the steps which the Jef- 
fersonian Republicans took trippingly. It was this 
new, nationalized democracy, purged of most of its 
impractical theories, which found itself triumphant 
as the result of the war, and apparently endowed 
with a long lease of power. Nationalism and democ- 
racy were to grow together, both reinforced by the 
development of the west, by the diversion of the 
attention of the east from commerce to manufactur- 
ing, and by the change from attachment to European 
interests to devotion to internal development. 

In several respects the two parties had exchanged 
places. The Federalists threatened secession in 
181 1, because the party responsible for the Virginia 
and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1799 was 
about to admit part of the Louisiana purchase as 
the state of Louisiana, without the consent of all the 
original states. Later on, the Hartford Convention 
seemed to make preparations for breaking up the 
Union. The extent to which Republicans had 
adopted Federalist positions is perhaps best illus- 
trated by the suggestions in Madison's annual 
message of 1 8 1 5 ; for none but a strong government 
with liberal endowment of powers could carry out 
his programme : liberal provisions for defence, an en- 
larged navy, protection to manufacturers, national 



i8is] RESULTS OF WAR 183 

roads and canals, a national university, more military 
academies, and — very cautiously — a national bank/ 

Even before this message was prepared, Congress 
gave evidence of the conversion of the Republicans 
to better views regarding the army and navy. The 
ratification of the treaty of Ghent made it necessary 
to put the two services on a peace footing. Monroe, 
the secretary of war, recommended to the Senate 
committee on military affairs the establishment 
of an army of twenty thousand men, involving an 
annual expense of five million dollars. But this 
was too much for either House; after various votes 
for ten, six, and fifteen thousand men, ten thousand 
was agreed upon in conference, and in this form the 
bill became a law. Though no large provision was 
made for the future of the navy, the whole war 
establishment was maintained unreduced, and an 
appropriation of four million four hundred thousand 
dollars made for its support.^ 

A little war upon the dey of Algiers might be 
called one of the results of the war against England. 
In almost the same breath by which Congress had 
voted to continue the whole war establishment of 
the navy, it authorized the use of that navy for 
punishing the dey for his depredations upon Amer- 

' Story, Story, I., 284, quotes a remarkable letter by Justice 
Story, written in 181 5, on the "glorious opportunity" before 
the Republicans; Richardson, Alessages and Papers, I., 562 et 
seq. 

^ Monroe, Writings, V., 321; U. S. Statutes at Large, III., 222, 
223, 224. 



i84 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1815 

ican commerce. In the annual tribute which the 
United States had paid for seventeen years to the 
piratical Algerine, he alleged there was a deficiency 
of twenty-seven thousand dollars, and, taking ad- 
vantage of the war with England, he captured 
American ships and enslaved American citizens. 
In accordance with the act of Congress, Captain 
Decatur sailed with ten vessels in May, 181 5, to 
punish the dey and exact a new treaty. After 
destroying a forty - six - gun frigate and a smaller 
vessel, he sailed boldly into the harbor of Algiers, 
and finally extracted from the dey the renunciation 
of all tribute for the future, the release of all Amer- 
ican prisoners without ransom, and a guarantee 
that the commerce of the United States should 
never again be molested by the Algerians. "You 
told us," one of the dey's courtiers is reported as 
saying to the British consul, "that the American 
navy would be destroyed in six months by you, and 
now they make war upon us with three of your own 
vessels which they have taken from you." A visit 
to Tunis and Tripoli with the same grim purpose 
resulted in similar guarantees of safety to American 
commerce in the Mediterranean.^ 

Not the least of the results of the war was the 
prominence gained by three of the younger military 
commanders, each of whom, in consequence, eventu- 

^ Am. State Paps., Foreign, III., 748; Ibid., Naval, I., 396; 
Maclay, Htst. of the Navy, II., chap, i.; Waldo, Decatur (ed. of 
1822), 278. 



1815] RESULTS OF WAR 185 

ally was nominated for the presidency, and two of 
them elected. The American people, while essen- 
tially peace-loving and unmilitary by temperament, 
have shown a curious hero-worship of the successful 
military leader. The "availability" of Jackson, 
Harrison, Taylor, and Grant for the presidency 
rested almost entirely upon their records as military 
commanders. Ever after 181 5 Andrew Jackson was 
known as the " Hero of New Orleans," and in a few 
years he became a presidential possibility. William 
Henry Harrison was a man of good family, educa- 
tion, and political experience, but except as the vic- 
tor at Tippecanoe in 181 1, and at the Thames in 
1 81 3, he would hardly have been a highly eligible 
candidate for the presidency at the age of sixty- 
seven. Winfield Scott entered the war as a young 
lieutenant - colonel, but at the close he bore the 
epaulets of a major-general and a gold medal voted 
by Congress; promotion and the opportunities of 
the Mexican War made him the logical Whig mil- 
itary candidate in 1852. Another presidential can- 
didate, a civilian, was John Quincy Adams, whose 
advancement came as a result of his part in the 
negotiations at Ghent — a fine recognition of real 
merit, undiminished by any suggestion of personal 
or party "pull." Madison transferred him from 
St. Petersburg to London at the close of the war, 
and from that post he was called to be secretary of 
state in 181 7 and president in 1825. 

Social results of any particular event or series of 



i86 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1815 

events, like those of a war, are not easy to disentangle 
or measure. Such results cannot be traced like a 
nerve-fibre from the brain to a particular organ. 
What changes might have appeared in American 
society, even had there been no war with England, 
simply as a result of the expansion of the country, 
the development of slavery, and the pacification of 
Europe, are matters for infinite speculation. This 
much, however, may be set down as an effect of 
the war: a new, almost intoxicating sense of self- 
respect on the part of the people and the governing 
powers in state and nation. The young men of 
1 81 5, who had heard so much depreciation of Amer- 
ican character during the years of depression and 
subservience to France and England, gloried in the 
demonstration of the courage — and good fortune — 
of the nation ; nor did even the Federalists analyze 
too carefully the validity of the grounds for this 
personal and national uplift. All were quite ready 
to forget those things which were behind, and press 
towards the realization of a new high calling. 

The effect of this fresh, free impulse, this fine 
sense of detachment and of opportunity, affected 
the literary and religious life of America almost as 
profoundly as it did the political and economic ideals 
and activities of the nation. It aided the " theolog- 
ical thaw" which had already begun before 18 15. 
The emotional side of the revolt from the hardness 
of the old orthodoxy found its expression in the at- 
tempts of Campbell in the west and of Hosea Ballou 



i8i5] RESULTS OF WAR 187 

in the east to reduce religion to a simpler and more 
inclusive matter, as over against the complex, 
severely logical exclusiveness of Calvinism and its 
modifications. The Unitarian movement in New 
England, centring about Harvard Unive sity, had 
been spreading for a decade when the peace of Ghent 
was made. Its strong emphasis on the worth of 
man and the naturalness of his living a loving, 
sober, righteous, and godly life, according to the 
dictates of a mind carefully instructed in the com- 
prehensible things of the spirit and of doctrine, fell 
in with the new national sense of the political 
worth of the people of the nation. Even where 
these two movements did not cause organized 
changes in the churches, their influence was clearly 
felt, though the era of good feeling in the religious 
world was slow in succeeding the war of faction and 
doctrine.* 

In literature the new life began to manifest itself 
in this second decade of the century, but it seems to 
be rather a part of the large movement in the English- 
speaking race than a merely local or national af- 
fair, for the international ferment of the American 
Revolution and of the French Revolution and the 
Napoleonic period had not exhausted its influence 
at the end of the generation of those who took part 
in these mighty events. Still it was perhaps due in 
no small degree to the conditions of the time, that, 
within a period of twelve years following i8io, there 

* Adams, United States, IX., chap. viii. 



1 88 SOCIAL AND ECONOAIIC FORCES [1815 

were graduated from Harvard University alone a 
group of men whose achievements, eaeh in his own 
field of activity, were to be great: Edward Everett, 
Henry Ware, William H. Prescott, John G. Palfrey, 
George Bancroft, Caleb Gushing, and Ralph Waldo 
Emerson.* Bryant was beginning his literary career 
with the striking " Lines to a Waterfowl " and " Than- 
atopsis. ' ' Irving published his uniquely fresh History 
of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, in 1809, The 
North American Review began its long and honor- 
able career in 18 15. The rise of a group of political 
and occasional orators of great power and of brilliant 
diction must not be forgotten in any estimate of the 
intellectual and social characteristics of the period 
after 181 1 ; their efforts were as distinctly literary and 
stimulating as were the efforts of Ware or Irving. 
Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and Everett found their 
original inspiration in the national idea, and with one 
exception maintained it with cumulative power and 
grace, 

' Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue (1905), 154-165. 



CHAPTER XI 

NEW ENGLAND 
(1820-1830) 

BY geographical position, the land of the Puri- 
tans was devoted to provincialism. While other 
sections merged into one another and even had a 
west in their own midst, New England was obliged 
to cross populous states in order to reach the re- 
gions into which national life was expanding; and 
her sons who migrated found themselves under 
conditions that weakened their old affiliations and 
linked their fortunes with the section which they 
entered. The ocean had dominated New Eng- 
land's interests and connected her with the Old 
World ; the fisheries and carrying - trade had en- 
grossed her attention until the embargo and the 
War of 181 2 gave importance to her manufactures. 
In spirit, also, New England was a section apart. 
The impress of Puritanism was still strong upon 
her, and the unity of her moral life was exceptional. 
Moreover, up to the beginning of the decade with 
which we have to deal. New England had a pop- 
ulation of almost unmixed English origin, contrast- 



igo SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

ing sharply, in this respect, with the other sec- 
tions.* 

With these peculiarities, New England often 
played an important sectional role, not the least 
effective instance of which had been her inde- 
pendent attitude in the War of 1812.^ By 1820, 
not only were profound economic and social changes 
affecting the section, but its relative importance as 
a factor in our political life was declining.' The 
trans - Alleghany states, which in 1790 reported 
only a little over one hundred thousand souls, at 
a time when New England's population was over 
one million, had in 1820 reached a population of 
nearly two millions and a quarter, while New Eng- 
gland had not much over a million and a half. 
Ten years later, the latter section had less than 
two millions, while the western states beyond the 
Alleghanies had over three millions and a half, and 
the people northwest of the Ohio River alone num- 
bered nearly a million and a half. In 1820 the 
total population of New England was about equal 
to the combined population of New York and New 
Jersey; but its increase between 1820 and 1830 was 
hardly three hundred thousand, not much over 

' For the characteristics of New England in colonial times, see 
Ty\er, England in America, chapsi. xviii., xix.; Andrews, Co/o- 
nial Self -Government, chaps, xviii., xix.; Greene, Provincial 
America, chaps, xii., xiii., xvi.-xviii. ; Bassett, Federalist System, 
chaps, xi., xiii. {Am^. Nation, IV., V., /I., XI.). 

* Babcock, Am. Nationality {Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. ix. 

'Adams, United States, IX., chaps, iv., vii. 



1830] NEW ENGLAND 191 

half that of New York, and less than the gain of 
Ohio. If Maine, the growing state of the group, 
be excluded, the increase of the whole section was 
less than that of the frontier state of Indiana. 
"Our New England prosperity and importance are 
passing away," wrote Webster at the beginning of 
the period.* 

Were it not that New England was passing 
through a series of revolutionary economic changes, 
not fully appreciated at that time, doubtless the 
percentage of her growth would have been even 
more unfavorable. As it was, the rise of new 
manufactures helped to save her from becoming an 
entirely stationary section. In the course of the 
preceding two decades. New England's shipping 
industry had reached an extraordinary height, by 
reason of her control of the neutral trade during 
the European wars. The close of that period saw 
an apparent decline in her relative maritime power 
in the Union, but the shipping and commercial in- 
terests were still strong. New England possessed 
half the vessels owned in the United States and 
over half the seamen. Massachusetts alone had a 
quarter of the ships of the nation and over a third 
of the sailors.'' Of the exports of the United 
States in 1820, the statistics gave to New England 
about twenty per cent., nine-tenths of which were 



' McMaster, Webster, 90. 

' Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 350. 



192 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

from Massachusetts.* This is rather an under- 
estimate of the share of New England, because a 
portion of the commerce fitted out by her capital 
and her ships sought the harbor of New York. 

Great as was New England's interest in the com- 
mercial policy of the United States, the manufact- 
ures of the section rose to such importance in the 
course of this decade that the policy of the section 
was divided. The statistics of the manufactures of 
the United States at the beginning and at the end 
of the period were so defective that little depend- 
ence can be placed upon them for details. But 
the figures for New England were more complete 
than for the other regions; the product of her 
cotton mills increased in value from two and one- 
half million dollars in 1820 to over fifteen and one- 
half millions in 1831 ; and her woollen products rose 
from less than a million dollars to over eleven 
million dollars. In Massachusetts alone, in the 
same years, the increase in cottons was from about 
seven hundred thousand dollars to over seven 
million seven hundred thousand dollars; and in 
woollens, from less than three hundred thousand 
dollars to over seven million three hundred thou- 
sand dollars.^ 

In brief, the period witnessed the transfer of the 

' Shaler, United States, I., chap, x.; MacGregor, Commercial 
Statistics of America, 41, 58, 63, 72, 126, 133. 

'See Secretary of Treasury, Report, 18^4-18^^, pp., 87-92; 
"Treasury Report," in House Exec. Docs., 22 Cong., i Sess., I., 
No. 308. 



1830] NEW ENGLAND i93 

industrial centre of gravity from the harbors to 
the water-falls, from commerce and navigation to 
manufactures. Besides the textile mills of Rhode 
Island and Connecticut, the Merrimac mills grew 
rapidly around Lowell, Massachusetts; the water- 
powers of New Hampshire became the sites of 
factory towns, and the industrial revolution which, 
in the time of the embargo, began to transfer in- 
dustries from the household to the factory, was 
rapidly carried on. A labor class began to de- 
velop, farmers moved into towns, the daughters 
worked in the mills. It was not long before Irish 
immigrants found their way to the section and re- 
placed the natives in the mills. The old social and 
racial unity began to break down.^ 

Agriculture still occupied the larger number of 
New England people, but it was relatively a de- 
clining interest. As early as 1794, Tench Coxe had 
characterized New England as a completely settled 
region, with the exception of Maine and Vermont. 
The generation that followed saw an expansion of 
agricultural population until the best valley lands 
were taken and the hill - sides were occupied by 
struggling farmers. By 1830 New England was 
importing corn and flour in large quantities from 
the other sections. The raising of cattle and sheep 



* Woollen, "Labor Troubles between 1834 and 1837," in Yale 
Review, I., 87; Martineau, Society in America, II., 227, 243, 246; 
Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics, 137; Addison, Lucy 
Larcom, 6; Clay, Works, V., 467. 



194 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S20 

increased as grain cultivation declined. Tlie back- 
country of Maine particularly was being occupied 
for cattle farms, and in Vermont and the Berk- 
shires there was, towards the close of the decade, a 
marked tendency to combine the small farms into 
sheep pastures. Thus, in the tariff agitation of the 
latter part of the decade, these two areas of west- 
em New England showed a decided sympathy with 
the interests of the wool - growers of the country 
at large. This tendency also fostered emigration 
from New England, since it diminished the num- 
ber of small farms. By the sale of their lands to 
their wealthier neighbors, the New England farmers 
were able to go west with money to invest.^ 

In the outlying parts, like the back-country of 
Vermont, farmers still lived under primitive in- 
dustrial conditions, supporting the family largely 
from the products of the farm, weaving and spin- 
ning under the conditions of household industry 
that had characterized the colonial period, slaugh- 
tering their cattle and hogs, and packing their 
cheese. When the cold weather set in, caravans 
of Vermont farmers passed, by sledges, to the 
commercial centres of New England.^ But the 
conditions of life were hard for the back-coimtry 
farmer, and the time was rapidly approacliing when 

* Niles' Register, XLIX., 68; Smith and Rann, Rutland County 
iVt.], 166; Goodhue, Hist, of Shoreham [Vt.], 59; Nat. Assoc, 
of Wool Manufacturers, Bulletin, XXX., 47, 242, c6i. 

* Heaton, Story of Vermont, chap. v'. 



iS3o] NEW ENGLAND 195 

the attractions of the western prairies would cause 
a great exodus from these regions. 

While New England underwent the economic 
changes that have been mentioned, a political rev- 
olution was also in progress. The old Federalist 
party and Federalist ideas gradually gave way. 
Federalism found its most complete expression in 
Connecticut, "the land of steady habits," where 
"Innovation" had always been frowned upon by a 
governing class in which the Congregational clergy 
were powerful. Permanence in office and the in- 
fluence of the clergy were prominent characteristics 
of the Connecticut government.^ The ceremonies 
of the counting of votes for governor indicated the 
position of the dominant classes in this society. 
This solemnity was performed in the church. 
"After the Representatives," wrote Dwight, the 
president of Yale College, "walk the Preacher of 
the Day, and the Preacher of the succeeding year: 
and a numerous body of the Clergy, usually more 
than one hundred, close the procession." He notes 
that there were several thousand spectators from 
all over the state, who were perfectly decorous, not 
even engaging in noisy conversation, and that a 
public dinner was regularly given by the state to 
the clergy who were present at the election.^ 

After the War of 181 2, this dominance of the 

' Dwight, Travels, I., 362, 263, 291; Welling, "Conn. Federal- 
ism," in N. Y. Hist. Soc, Address, 1890, pp. 39-41. 
'Dwight, Travels, I., 267. 



196 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Congregational clergy throughout the section was 
attacked by a combination of religious and polit- 
ical forces/ There had been a steady growth of 
denominations like the Baptists and Methodists 
in New England. As a rule, these were located 
in the remoter and newer communities, and, where 
they were strongest, there was certain to be a 
considerable democratic influence. Not only did 
these denominations tend to unite against the Fed- 
eralists and the Congregationalists, but they found 
useful allies in the members of the old and influ- 
ential Episcopal church, who had with them a 
common grievance because of the relations between 
the state and Congregationalism. Although the 
original support of the Congregational clergy by 
public taxation had been modified by successive 
acts of legislation in most of these states, so that 
persons not of that church might make their legal 
contributions for the support of their own clergy,^ 
yet this had been achieved only recently and but 
incompletely. 

We find, therefore, that the alliance of Episco- 
palians and Dissenters against the dominant clergy 
and the Federalists was the key to internal politics 
at the opening of our period. "The old political 
distinctions," wrote the editor of the Vermont 
Journal, "seem to have given place to religious 

' Schouler, United Stales, II., 282, 511, III., 53; Adams, 
United States, IX., 133. 
'Fearon, Sketches of America, 114. 



1830] NEW ENGLAND 197 

ones." But the religious contentions were so 
closely interwoven with the struggle of New Eng- 
land's democracy to throw off the control of the 
established classes, that the contest was in reality 
rather more political and social than religious. By 
her constitutional convention of 181 8, Connecticut 
practically disestablished the Congregational church 
and did away with the old manner of choosing as- 
sistants.^ In the election of 1820 the Republican 
candidate for governor was elected by a decisive 
vote, and all of Connecticut's representation in 
the lower house of Congress was Republican,^ al- 
though, in 1 81 6, the Federalist candidate had been 
chosen by a small majority.' New Hampshire's 
toleration act was passed in 1819, but she had 
achieved her revolution as early as 181 6, when a 
union of the anti - Congregational denominations 
with the Republicans destroyed the ascendency of 
the Federalists and tried to break that party's con- 
trol of the educational centre at Dartmouth College.'* 
The contest was not so clearly marked in Massa- 
chusetts as in the other states, for the old centres 
of Congregational power, notably Harvard College, 
had already begun to feel the liberalizing influence 
of the Unitarian movement. Congregationalism in 

* Baldwin, "The Three Constitutions of Conn.," in New Haven 
Colony Hist. Soc., Papers, V., 210-214. 

^ Niks' Register, XVHI., 128. 
'Adams, United States, IX., 133. 

* F. B. Sanborn, New Hampshire, 251 et .seq.; Barstow, New 
Hampshire, chaps, xi., xii.; Plumer, William Plumer, 437-460. 

14 



198 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Massachusetts divided into warring camps* and was 
not in a position to exercise the political power it 
had shown in other states of New England. The 
discussion in that state between the Unitarian 
and orthodox wings of the Congregational churches 
tended, on the whole, to moderate the extreme 
views of each, as well as to prevent their united 
domination. In her constitutional convention of 
1820, Massachusetts refused to do away with the 
advantage which the Congregational church had in 
the matter of public support, and it was not until 
1833 that the other denominations secured the com- 
plete separation of church and state. The moder- 
ate attitude of the Federalists of the state length- 
ened their tenure of power. Governor Brooks, 
elected by the Federalists in 181 7, was a friend of 
Monroe, and a moderate who often took Republi- 
cans for his counsellors, a genuine representative of 
what has been aptly termed the " Indian summer 
of Federalism in Massachusetts." 

The Republican party controlled the other states 
of the section, but there was in New England, as 
a whole, a gradual decline and absorption, rather 
than a destruction, of the Federalist party, while, at 
the same time, marked internal political differences 
constituted a basis for subsequent political con- 
flicts. Just before he took his seat in Congress in 
1823, Webster lamented to Judge Story that New 
England did not get out of the " dirty squabble of 
'Walker, Cong. Churches in the U. S., 303-308. 



1830] NEW ENGLAND 199 

local politics, and assert her proper character and 
consequence." "We are disgraced," he said, "be- 
yond help or hope by these things. There is a 
Federal interest, a Democratic interest, a bankrupt 
interest, an orthodox interest, and a middling in- 
terest; but I see no national interest, nor any 
national feeling in the whole matter." ^ 

In general, northern New England — Maine, New 
Hampshire, and Vermont — showed a distinct ten- 
dency towards Democracy; in southern New Eng- 
land the fortifications of Federalism and Congrega- 
tional power lay in a wide belt along the Connecticut 
River, while along the sea-coast and in the Berk- 
shire region the Democratic forces showed strength. 

From the outlying rural forces, where Democracy 
was strong, the settlement of New-Englanders in 
the middle west was to come. To Timothy Dwight, 
the president of Yale, who voiced the extreme con- 
servatism of Federal New England, the pioneers 
seemed unable to live in regular society. "They 
are impatient of the restraints of law, religion, and 
morality; grmnble about the taxes, by which Rulers, 
Ministers, and School-masters, are supported; and 
complain incessantly, as well as bitterly, of the 
extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants, and 
physicians ; to whom they are always indebted. At 
the same time, they are usually possessed, in their 
own view, of uncommon wisdom ; understand medi- 
cal science, politics, and religion, better than those, 

' McMaster, Webster, 99. 



200 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

who have studied them through life." These rest- 
less men, with nothing to lose, who were delighted 
with innovation, were, in his judgment, of the type 
that had ruined Greece and Rome. " In mercy, 
therefore," exclaimed Dwight, "to the sober, in- 
dustrious, and well - disposed inhabitants. Provi- 
dence has opened in the vast western wilderness 
a retreat, sufficiently alluring to draw them away 
from the land of their nativity. We have many 
troubles even now ; but we should have many more, 
if this body of foresters had remained at home." * 

Perhaps the most striking feature of New Eng- 
land life was its organization into communities. 
What impressed the traveller from other sections 
or from the Old World was partly the small farms, 
divided into petty fields by stone fences, but, above 
all, " the clustering of habitations in villages instead 
of dispersing them at intervals of a mile over the 
country." The spires of the white churches of 
separate hamlets dotted the landscape. Simple 
comfort and thrift were characteristic of the region. 
"Here," wrote a Virginia planter, travelling in New 
England in the early thirties, "is not apparent a 
hundredth part of the abject squalid poverty that 
our State presents." ^ 

The morale of New England was distinctive. 
Puritanism had founded the section, and two cen- 
turies of Calvinistic discipline had moulded the New 

* Dwight, Travels, II., 458-463. 

^ "Minor's Journal," in Atlantic Monthly, XXVI., 333. 



1830] NEW ENGLAND 201 

England conscience. That serious self-conscious- 
ness, that self-scrutiny, almost morbid at times, by 
which the Puritan tried to solve the problem of his 
personal salvation, to determine whether he was 
of the elect, ^ was accompanied by an almost equal 
anxiety concerning the conduct of his neighbors. 
The community life of New England emphasized 
this trait. 

Tudor, who was not friendly to the ideals of the 
"land of steady habits," criticised "the narrowing 
influence of local policy," and lamented the "sort 
of habitual, pervading police, made up of Calvinistic 
inquisition and village scrutiny" in Connecticut.^ 
Not to be one's brother's keeper and not to assent 
to the dictates of community sentiment were in- 
dications of moral laxity. This long training in 
theological inquiry, this continued emphasis upon 
conduct, and this use of community sentiment as 
a means of enforcing certain moral and political 
ideals, led the New-Englander to war with opposing 
conceptions wherever he went. 

A test of the ideals of New England is found in 
the attitude of those who spread into new regions. 
The migrating Yankee was a reformer. A con- 
siderable proportion of the New - Englanders who 
left the section were " come-outers " in religion as 
in politics ; many of the Vermonters and the pioneers 
who went west were radicals. But the majority of 

' Wendell, Cotton Mather, 6. 

* Tudor, Letters on the Eastern States (ed. of 182 1), 60. 



202 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

these dissenters from the established order carried 
with them a body of ideas regarding conduct and 
a way of looking at the world that were deeply in- 
fluenced by their old Puritan training. If, indeed, 
they revolted from the older type of Calvinism in 
the freer air of a new country, they were, by this 
sudden release from restraint, likely to develop 
"isms" of their own, which revealed the strong 
underlying forces of religious thinking. Lacking 
the restraining influence of the old Congregational 
system, some of them contented themselves with 
placing greater emphasis upon emotional religion 
and eagerly embraced membership in churches like 
the Baptist or Methodist, or accepted fellowship 
with Presbyterians and welcomed the revival spirit 
of the western churches. 

Others used their freedom to proclaim a new order 
of things in the religious world. Most noteworthy 
was Mormonism, which was founded by a migrating 
New England family and was announced and reach- 
ed its first success among the New - Englanders of 
New York and Ohio. Antimasonry and spiritual- 
ism flourished in the Greater New England in which 
these emancipated Puritans settled. Wherever the 
New-Englander went he was a leader in reform, in 
temperance crusades, in abolition of slavery, in 
Bible societies, in home missions, in the evangeli- 
zation of the west, in the promotion of schools, and 
in the establishment of sectarian colleges. 

Perhaps the most significant elements in the dis- 



1830] NEW ENGLAND 203 

integration of the old Congregationalism in New 
England itself, however, were furnished by the Uni- 
tarians and the Universalists. For nearly a genera- 
tion the liberal movement in religion had been pro- 
gressing. The Unitarian revolt, of which Channing 
was the most important leader, laid its emphasis 
upon conduct rather than upon a plan of salvation 
by atonement. In place of original sin and total 
depravity, it came more and more to put stress upon 
the fatherhood of God and the dignity of man. The 
new optimism of this faith was carried in still an- 
other direction by the Universalist movement, with 
its gospel of universal salvation.* 

The strength of the Unitarian movement was 
confined to a limited area about Boston, but within 
its own sphere of influence it contested successfully 
with the old Congregational power, captured Har- 
vard College, and caught the imaginations of large 
numbers of the best educated and prosperous classes 
of the community. Attempting to adjust them- 
selves between the old order of things on the one 
side, and the new forces of evangelism and lib- 
eralism on the other, another great body of Con- 
gregationalists found a middle ground in a move- 
ment of modified Calvinism, which sustained the 
life of Congregationalism in large areas of New 
England. By these movements of conflict and re- 
adjustment, whatever of unity the older Congrega- 
tional faith had possessed was gradually broken 
^ Cf. Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. xi. 



204 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

down and a renaissance of religious and moral ideas 
was ushered in. 

This change was soon to find expression in a new 
literary movement in New England, a movement 
in which poetry and prose were to take on a cheer- 
ful optimism, a joy in life, and an idealism. This 
new literature reflected the influence of the Unitari- 
an movement, the influence of European romantic 
literature, and the influence of German philosophy. 
Before long the Transcendentalists proclaimed the 
new idealism that was showing itself about Bos- 
ton.^ Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Hawthorne, 
and Emerson were all prophesied in the forces of 
intellectual change that now spread over the sec- 
tion. 

Even New England's statesmen were deeply in- 
fluenced by the literary spirit. Daniel Webster, 
although the son of a New Hampshire pioneer 
whose log cabin was on the edge of the vast forest 
that stretched north to Canada, had won an educa- 
tion at the "little college" at Dartmouth; and, after 
his removal to Boston, he captivated New England 
by his noble commemorative orations and enriched 
his arguments before the courts by the splendor of 
his style. He united the strong, passionate nature 
of his backwoods father with a mind brought under 
the influences of the cultured society of Boston. 
John Quincy Adams, also, had been professor of 
rhetoric and oratory at Harvard, and he found in 

* Wendell, Literary Hist, of America, book V., chaps, iv., v. 



1S31] NEW ENGLAND 205 

the classics a solace when the political world grew 
dark around him. Edward Everett represented 
even more clearly the union of the man of letters 
with the political leader. If we except the brill- 
iant but erratic John Randolph, of Roanoke, no 
statesman from other sections showed this impress 
of literature. 

While these forces were developing, a liberaliz- 
ing of the colleges, and particularly of Harvard, by 
the introduction of new courses in literature and 
science, was in progress. Reform movements, de- 
signed to give fuller expression to common-school 
public education, began, and already in 1821 Bos- 
ton had established the first English high -school, 
precursor of a movement of profound importance in 
the uplifting of the masses. Lyceums and special 
schools for the laborers flourished in the new cen- 
tres of manufacturing. The smaller educational 
centres, like Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst, and 
Williams, where the farmer boys of New England 
worked their way through college, sent out each 
year men to other sections to become leaders at the 
bar, in the pulpit, in the press, and in the newer 
colleges. The careers of Amos Kendall, Prentiss, 
and others illustrate these tendencies. In short, 
New England was training herself to be the school- 
mistress of the nation. Her abiding power was to 
lie in the influence which she exerted in letters, in 
education, and in reform. She was to find a new 
life and a larger sphere of activity in the wide-spread 



2o6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1821 

western communities which were already invaded 
by her sons. In furnishing men of talent in these 
fields she was to have an influence out of all relation 
to her population.* 

» Century Mag., XLVII., 43. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MIDDLE REGION 

(1820-1830) 

THE middle states formed a zone of transition 
between the east and the west, the north and 
the south/ Geographically, they lay on the line of 
the natural routes between the Atlantic on the one 
side, and the Ohio and the Great Lakes on the 
other.^ The waters of the Susquehanna, rising near 
the lake region of central New York, flowed to 
Chesapeake Bay, which opened into the Atlantic far 
down Virginia's coast -line. The Great Valley ran 
through eastern Pennsylvania, across Maryland, 
and, in the form of the Shenandoah Valley, made 
a natural highway to the interior of North Carolina. 
New York City and Philadelphia saw in an intimate 
connection with the rising west the pledge of their 
prosperity; and Baltimore, which was both a me- 
tropolis of the south and of the middle region, ex- 

* For earlier discussions of the middle colonies and states, see 
Tyler, England in America, chap, xvii.; Andrews, Colonial Selj- 
Government, chaps, v., vii., xviii., xix.; Greene, Provincial 
America, chaps, xvi.-xviii. {Am. Nation, IV., V., VI.) 

* Gallatin, Writings, III., 49; Clinton, in Laws of the State of 
JN. Y. in Relation to Erie and Champlain Canals, I., 140. 



2o8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

tended her trade north to central New York, west 
to the Ohio, and south into Virginia, and, Hke her 
rivals, sent her fleets to garner the commercial har- 
vest of the sea. 

In the composition of its population, also, the 
middle region was a land of transitions between 
sections, and a prototype of the modern United 
States, composite in its nationality. In New York 
an influential Dutch element still remained; the 
New England settlers had colonized the western 
half of the state and about equalled the native 
population. In Pennsylvania, Germans and Scotch- 
Irishmen had settled in such numbers in the course 
of the eighteenth century that, by the time of the 
Revolution, her population was almost evenly di- 
vided between these stocks and the English.* There 
was also a larger proportion of recent immigrants 
than in any other state, for by 1830 Pennsylvania 
had one unnaturalized alien to every fifty inhabi- 
tants. 

Following the Great Valley in the middle of the 
same century, the Scotch-Irish and German settlers 
had poured into the up-country of the south, so 
that these interior counties of Virginia and the 
Carolinas were like a peninsula thrust down from 
Pennsylvania into the south, with economic, racial, 
social, and religious connections which made an 
intimate bond between the two sections. A multi- 

' See Lincoln, Revolutionary Movement in Pa., in University 
of Pa., Publications, I., 24, 35. 



1830] MIDDLE REGION 209 

tude of religious sects flourished in tolerant Penn- 
sylvania, and even the system of local government 
was a combination of the New England town and 
the southern county. 

This region, therefore, was essentially a mediat- 
ing, transitional zone, including in its midst an 
outlying New England and a west, and lacking the 
essential traits of a separate section. It was fimda- 
mentaUy national in its physiography, its composi- 
tion, and its ideals — a fighting-ground for political 
issues which found their leaders in the other sections. 

Compared with New England, the middle region 
was a rapidly growing section. The population of 
New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Dela- 
ware combined was about two and three-quarter 
millions in 1820, and three and two- third millions 
in 1830. By that date New York alone balanced 
all New England in the number of its people. But 
it was its western half that permitted this growth of 
the middle section. During the decade 182 0-1830, 
New York west of Oneida Lake increased in popu- 
lation by a percentage more than twice as great, 
and by an amoimt almost as great, as that of the 
populous eastern half of the state. By the end of 
the decade, about one-third of Pennsylvania's popu- 
lation was found west of her central coimties. At 
that time New York and Pennsylvania became the 
most populous states in the Union. Virginia and 
Massachusetts, which in 1790 held the lead, had 
now fallen to third and eighth place respectively. 



2IO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

New Jersey, meanwhile, lagged far behind, and Del- 
aware's rate of increase was only five and one-half 
per cent. 

In 1829 a member of the Virginia constitutional 
convention asked: "Do gentlemen really believe, 
that it is owing to any diversity in the principles of 
the State Governments of the two states, that New 
York has advanced to be the first state in the 
Union, and that Virginia, from being the first, is 
now the third, in wealth and population ? Virginia 
ceded away her Kentucky, to form a new state; 
and New York has retained her Genessee — there lies 
the whole secret." ^ 

In the closing years of the eighteenth century 
and the first decade of the nineteenth the New 
York lands beyond the sources of the Mohawk had 
been taken up by a colonization characteristically 
western. New England farmers swarmed into the 
region, hard on the heels of the retreating Indians. 
Scarcely more than a decade before 1820 western 
New York presented typically frontier conditions. 
The settlers felled and burned the forest, built lit- 
tle towns, and erected mills, and now, with a sur- 
plus of agricultural products, they were suffering 
from the lack of a market and were demanding 
transportation facilities. Some of their lumber and 
flour found its way by the lakes and the St. Lawrence 
to Montreal, a portion went by rafts down the Alle- 
gheny to the waters of the Ohio, and some descend- 

' Va. Constitutional Convention, Debates (1829-1830), 405. 



i82o] MIDDLE REGION 211 

ed the upper tributaries of the Susquehanna and 
found an outlet in Baltimore or Philadelphia; but 
these routes were unreliable and expensive, and by 
one of them trade was diverted from the United 
States to Canada. There was a growing demand 
for canals that should give economic unity to New 
York and turn the tide of her interior commerce 
along the Mohawk and Lake Champlain into the 
waters of the Hudson and so to the harbor of New 
York City. The Erie and the Champlain canals 
were the outcome of this demand. 

It is the glory of De Witt Clinton that he saw 
the economic revolution which the Erie Canal would 
work, and that he was able to present clearly and 
effectively the reasons which made the undertaking 
practicable and the financial plan which made it 
possible. He persuaded the legislature by the vis- 
ion of a greater Hudson River, not only reaching 
to the western confines of the state, but even, by 
its connection with Lake Erie, stretching through 
two thousand miles of navigable lakes and rivers 
to the very heart of the interior of the United States. 
To him the Erie Canal was a political as well as an 
economic undertaking. " As a bond of union be- 
tween the Atlantic and western states," he declared, 
"it may prevent the dismemberment of the Ameri- 
can empire. As an organ of communication between 
the Hudson, the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, the 
great lakes of the north and west, and their tributary 
rivers, it will create the greatest inland trade ever 



212 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1825 

witnessed. The most fertile and extensive regions 
of America will avail themselves of its facilities for 
a market. All their surplus productions, whether 
of the soil, the forest, the mines, or the water, their 
fabrics of art and their supplies of foreign com- 
modities, will concentrate in the city of New- York, 
for transportation abroad or consumption at home. 
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, trade, navi- 
gation, and the arts, will receive a correspondent 
encouragement. That city will, in the course of 
time become the granary of the world, the em- 
porium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the 
focus of great moneyed operations, and the concen- 
trating point of vast, disposable, and accumulating 
capitals, which will stimulate, enliven, extend, and 
reward the exertions of human labor and ingenuity, 
in all their processes and exhibitions. And before 
the revolution of a century, the whole island of Man- 
hattan , covered with habitations and replenished with 
a dense population, will constitute one vast city." ^ 

Sanguine as were Clinton's expectations, the 
event more than justified his confidence. By 1825 
the great canal system, reaching by way of Lake 
Champlain to the St. Lawrence, and by way of the 
Mohawk and the lakes of central New York to Lake 
Erie, was opened for traffic throughout its whole 
length. The decrease in transportation charges 
brought prosperity and a tide of population into 
western New York; villages sprang up along the 

* View of the Grand Canal (N. Y., 1825), 30. 



1830] MIDDLE REGION 213 

whole line of the canal ; the water-power was utilized 
for manufactures; land values in the western part 
of the state doubled and in many cases quadrupled ; 
farm produce more than doubled in value. Buffalo 
and Rochester became cities,^ The raw products of 
the disappearing forests of western New York — lum- 
ber, staves, pot and pearl ashes, etc., and the grow- 
ing surplus of agricultural products, began to flow 
in increasing volume down this greater Hudson 
River to New York City. The farther west was 
also turning its streams of commerce into this 
channel. The tolls of the canal system were over 
half a million dollars immediately upon its comple- 
tion; for 1830 they were over a million dollars.^ 
By 1833 the annual value of the products sent by 
way of the Erie and Champlain canals was estimated 
at thirteen million dollars.' At the close of this 
decade the Ohio system of canals, inspired by the 
success of the Erie Canal, had rendered a large area 
of that state tributary to New York. The Great 
Lake navigation grew steadily, the Western Reserve 
increased its population, and the harbor of Cleve- 
land became a centre of trade. 

The effect of all this upon New York City was 

* J. Winden, Influence of the Erie Canal (MS. Thesis, Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin); U. S. Census of igoo, Population, I., 430, 
432; Callender, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVII., 22; 
Hulbert, Historic Highways, XIV., chap. v. 

' McMaster, United States, V., 135; Canal Commissioners of 
N.Y., Report (January 17, 1833), App. A. 

^ Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 577. 

15 



214 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S20 

revolutionary. Its population increased from 123,- j 
000 in 1S20 to 202,000 in 1830. Its real and per- 
sonal estate rose in value from about seventy million 
dollars in 1820 to about one hundred and twenty- 
five million dollars in 1830.* The most significant 
result of the canal was the development of the com- 
merce of New "York City, which rose from a market 
town for the Hudson River to be the metropolis of 
the north. The value of the imports of New York 
state in 1821 was twenty-four million dollars; in 
1825, the year of the completion of the canal, it was 
fifty million dollars. This was an exceptional year, 
however, and in 1830 the value of the imports was 
thirty-six million dollars. In 1821 New York had 
thirty-eight per cent, of the total value of imports 
into the United States; in 1825, over fifty per cent. ; 
and this proportion she maintained during our 
period. In the exports of domestic origin. New 
York was surpassed in 181 9 by Louisiana, and in 
1820 by South Carolina, but thereafter the state 
took and held the lead.^ In 1823 the amount of 
flour sent from the western portion of New York by 
the Erie Canal equalled the whole amount which 
reached New Orleans from the Mississippi Valley 
in that year.^ The state of New York had by a 

' U. S. Census of igoo. Population , I., 432; MacGregor, Com- 
mercial statistics of America, 145. 

* Compiled from Pitkin, Statistical View. 

' Based on statistics in Report on Internal Commerce. 1SS7, p. 
196; Canal Commissioners of N. Y., Annual Report (February 
30, 1824), S3. 



1830] MIDDLE REGION 215 

stroke achieved economic unity, and its metrop- 
olis at once became the leading city of the coun- 
try. 

Philadelphia lost power as New York City gained 
it. Though the counties tributary to Philadelphia 
constituted the old centre of population and politi- 
cal power, the significant fact of growth in Pennsyl- 
vania was the increasing importance of Pittsburg at 
the gateway to the Ohio Valley. In the Great Val- 
ley beyond the Blue Ridge lived the descendants 
of those early Germans and Scotch-Irishmen who 
early occupied the broad and level fields of this 
fertile zone, the granary of Pennsylvania. Beyond 
this rock-walled valley lay the mountains in the west 
and north of the state, their little valleys occupied 
by farmers, but already giving promise of the rich 
yield of iron and coal on which the future greatness 
of the state was to rest. The anthracite mines of 
the northeastern corner of the state, which have 
given to their later possessors such influence over 
the industries of the country, were just coming into 
use. The iron ores of the middle mountain counties 
found their way to the forges at Pittsburg. Al- 
ready the bituminous coals of the western counties 
were serving to generate steam-power for the mills 
upon the upper waters of the Ohio, but, as yet, the 
iron manufacturers of the state depended on the 
abundant forests for the production of coke for 
smelting. 

The problem of transportation pressed hard upon 



2i6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Pennsylvania from the beginning. While Phila- 
delphia was obliged to contest with Baltimore the 
possession of the eastern half of the state, she saw 
the productions of the western counties descending 
the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. Even the 
trade in manufactured goods which she had formerly 
sent to the western rivers was now menaced from 
two quarters : the development of steam navigation 
on the Mississippi enabled New Orleans to compete 
for this trade; and the construction of the Erie 
Canal, with the projected system of tributary canals 
in Ohio, made it plain to Pennsylvania that New 
York was about to wrest from her the markets of 
the west. It had taken thirty days and cost five 
dollars a hundred pounds to transport goods from 
Philadelphia to Columbus, Ohio; the same arti- 
cles could be brought in twenty days from New 
York, by the Erie Canal, at a cost of two dollars 
and a half a hundred.^ To Pennsylvania the con- 
trol of the western market, always an important 
interest, had led in 1800 to the construction of a 
system of turnpikes to connect Philadelphia with 
Pittsburg over the mountains, which developed a 
great wagon trade. But the days of this wagon 
trade were now numbered, for the National Road, 
joining the Ohio and the Potomac and passing south 
of Pittsburg, diverted a large share of this overland 
trade to Baltimore. The superior safety, rapidi- 
ty, and cheapness of canal communication showed 
* McMaster, United States, V., 136. 



1830] MIDDLE REGION 217 

Pennsylvania that she must adjust her transporta- 
tion to the new conditions. 

The way was prepared by the experience of cor- 
porations attempting to reach the coal-fields of 
northeastern Pennsylvania. In 1820 practically the 
whole output from the anthracite fields came from 
the Lehigh Valley and amounted to three hundred 
and sixty-five tons — an equivalent of one for each 
day of the year. By the end of the decade the 
output of the anthracite fields was about one hun- 
dred and seventy-five thousand tons, and the retail 
price was reduced to six dollars and a half a ton. 
Navigation had been secured by the coal companies 
between the mines and Philadelphia by the Schuyl- 
kill; the Union Canal connected the Schuylkill and 
Susquehanna, and New York City was supplied by 
the Delaware Canal. ^ 

This activity in Pennsylvania in the improvement 
of navigation so far had been the work of corpora- 
tions; but now, with the growth of population in 
the west and the completion of the Erie Canal, a 
popular demand arose for state construction of 
inland waterways. In 1825 the legislature passed 
an act under which an extensive system of canals 
was begun, to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburg, 
the Allegheny River with Lake Erie, and Philadel- 
phia with the central counties of New York at the 



• M'CuUoch, Commercial Dictionary (ed. of 1852), I., 366; U. S. 
Census of 1880, IV.; Worthington, Finances of Pa. 



2iS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

head of the Susquehanna.* Obstacles speedily de- 
veloped in the jealousies of the various sections of 
the state. The farmers of the Great Valley, whose 
interests lay in the development of a communica- 
tion with Baltimore, were not enthusiastic; the 
southern counties of the state, along the line of the 
turnpikes, found their interests threatened ; and the 
citizens of the northwestern counties were unwilling 
to postpone their demands for an outlet while the 
trunk-line was building. These jealousies furnish 
issues for the politics of the state during the rest of 
the decade.^ 

Nevertheless, Pennsylvania was gro\ving rich 
through the development of her agriculture and her 
manufactures. The iron industry of the state was 
the largest in the Union. Although the industry 
was only in its infancy, Pittsburg was already pro- 
ducing or receiving a large part of the pig-iron that 
was produced in Pennsylvania. The figures of the 
census of 1820 give to the middle states over forty 
per cent, of the product of pig-iron and castings and 
wrought iron in the United States, the value of the 
latter article for Pennsylvania being one million 
one hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars as against 
four hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars for 
New York.' The influence of this industry"- upon 



* See chap, xvii., below. 

* McCarthy, Antintasonic Party, in Am. Hist. Assoc, Report 
1902, I., 427. 

* Secretary of Treasury, Report, 1854-1855, p. 90. 



1830] MIDDLE REGION 219 

Pennsylvania politics became apparent in the dis- 
cussions over the protective tariff during the decade. 

Together, New York and Pennsylvania constituted 
a region dominated by interest in the production of 
grain and the manufacture of iron. Vast as was the 
commerce that entered the port of New York, the 
capital and shipping for the port were furnished in 
part by New England, and the real interest of the 
section was bound up with the developing resources 
of the interior of the nation. 

It must not be forgotten that, in these years of 
entrance upon its industrial career, the middle region 
was also the scene of intellectual movements of im- 
portance. These were the days when the Knicker- 
bocker school in New York brought independence 
and reputation to American literature, when Irving, 
although abroad, worked the rich mine of Hudson 
River traditions, and Cooper utilized his early experi- 
ence in the frontier around Lake Otsego to write his 
' ' Leatherstocking Tales. ' ' Movements for social ame- 
lioration abounded. The lighting of New York City 
and Philadelphia by gas diminished crime. Reform 
movements with regard to imprisonment for debt 
and the improvement of the condition of prisons, 
temperance movements, improvements in the ad- 
ministration of the public schools, and the increase 
in the number of high-schools were all indicative 
of the fact that this new democracy was not un- 
responsive to ideals. Among the New England 
element of western New York, as has already been 



220 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

pointed out, there arose some of the most interesting 
religious and poHtical movements of the period, 
such as Mormonism, Spiritualism, and Antimasonry. 
The Presbyterians and Baptists found a sympa- 
thetic constituency in the new regions. It is easy 
to see that the traits of these western counties of 
the middle states were such that idealistic politi- 
cal movements, as antislavery, would find in them 
effective support. 

Obviously, the political traits of this section 
would have a significance proportionate to the 
power of its population and resources. On the 
whole, the middle region was the most democratic 
section of the seaboard, but it was managed by the 
politicians under a system of political bargaining 
for the spoils of office. The old ascendency which 
the great families exercised over New York politics * 
was on the wane. The rise of the western half of 
the state diminished the influence of the successors 
to the patroons; but, nevertheless, family power 
continued to make itself felt, and a group of new 
men arose, around whom factions formed and dis- 
solved in a kaleidoscope of political change. 
I During the colonial period, executive patronage 
and land grants had been used to promote the in- 
terests of the men in power, and the reaction against 
executive corruption resulted in a provision in 
New York's constitution of 1777 whereby the ex- 

> Becker, " Nominations in Colonial New York " (.4 m. Hist, 
Rev.,Yl., 261), 



i82o] MIDDLE REGION 221 

ecutive was limited by the Council of Appoint- 
ment. The state was divided into four districts, 
and one senator from each was selected by the 
House of Representatives to serve in this council.* 
By 182 1 the council appointed 8287 military officers 
and 6663 civil officers. Nearly all the state officers, 
all the mayors, militia officers, and justices of the 
peace fell under its control.* This concentration of 
the appointive power in the hands of the dominant 
faction brought the system of rotation in office, and 
the doctrine that to the victors belong the spoils of 
war, to a climax. It led to the building up of politi- 
cal machines by the use of offices, from the lowest 
to the highest, as the currency for political trading. 
The governor was checked, but the leaders of the 
party in power held despotic control over the offices 
of the state. 

This bargaining was facilitated by the extension 
of the system of nominating conventions. From the 
local units of town and county upwards, the custom 
of sending delegates to conventions had early de- 
veloped in the state. It had become a settled prac- 
tice for the representatives of one local unit to agree 
with those of another regarding the order in which 
their favorite sons should receive office. Town bar- 
gained with town, county with county, district with 
district. In place of the system of control by the 
established classes, New York's democracy was learn- 

' Fish, Civil Service, 87. 

' Hammond, Political Parties in N. Y., II., 65. 



222 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

ing to elaborate the machinery of nomination by 
the people; but in the process there was devel- 
oped a race of managing politicians, and the cam- 
paigns tended to become struggles between personal 
elements for power rather than contests on political 
issues. 

The finished product of New York politics is 
shown in Van Buren, the devotee of "regularity" 
in party and the adroit manager of its machinery. 
Shrewdness, tact, and self-reliant judgment, urbane 
good -humor, mingled with a suspicious and half- 
cynical expression, were written on his face. " Lit- 
tle Van" was an affable, firm, and crafty politician. 
Although he was not a creative statesman, neither 
was he a mere schemer. He had definite ideas, if 
not convictions, of the proper lines of policy, and 
was able to state them with incisive and forcible 
argument when occasion demanded. To him, per- 
haps, more than to any other of the politicians, fell 
the task of organizing the campaign of Crawford, 
and afterwards of making the political combinations 
that brought in the reign of Andrew Jackson. He 
was the leader of that element of New York politics 
known as the Bucktails, from the emblem worn by 
the Tammany Society. Clinton, his opponent, ex- 
ercised an influence somewhat akin to the Living- 
stons, the Schuylers, the Van Rensselaers, and the 
other great family leaders in the baronial days of 
New York politics. Brusque, arrogant, and ambi- 
tious., he combined the petty enmities of a domineer- 



i82o] MIDDLE REGION 223 

ing politician with flashes of statesman-like insight, 
and he crushed his way to success by an extermi- 
nating warfare against his enemies. Around him 
gathered a personal following embracing one wing 
of the Republicans, aided by a large fraction of the 
old Federal party. For the most part, his strength 
lay along the line of the Erie Canal and in the re- 
gions where the New England element was strong. 

About these New York rivals were grouped many 
lesser lights, for the political organization tended to 
create a multitude of able political leaders, many of 
them capable of holding high position, but few of 
them swayed by compelling ideas or policies. 

In Pennsylvania, where the spoils system and the 
nominating convention developed contemporane- 
ously with the movement in New York, there were 
even fewer men of the highest political rank. Galla- 
tin's effective career belongs to an earlier period, and 
he had no successor, as a national figure, among the 
Pennsylvania party chieftains. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE SOUTH 
(1820-1830) 

IN the decade which forms the subject of this 
study, no section underwent more far - reach- 
ing changes than did the group of South Atlantic 
states made up of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, 
and Georgia, with which this chapter will deal un- 
der the name of the south. Then it was that the 
south came to appreciate the effect of the westward 
spread of the cotton-plant upon slavery and politics. 
The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney,* 
in 1793, made possible the profitable cultivation of 
the short-staple variety of cotton. Before this, the 
labor of taking the seeds by hand from this variety, 
the only one suited to production in the uplands, 
had prevented its use ; thereafter, it was only a ques- 
tion of time when the cotton area, no longer limited 
to the tidewater region, would extend to the interior, 
carrying slavery with it. This invention came at an 
opportune time. Already the inventions of Ark- 
wright, Hargreaves, and Cartwright had worked a 
revolution in the textile industries of England, by 
^ Am. Hist. Review, III., 99. 



1830] THE SOUTH 225 

means of the spinning-jenny, the power-loom, and 
the factory system, furnishing machinery for the 
manufacture of cotton beyond the world's supply.* 
Under the stimulus of this demand for cotton, 
year by year the area of slavery extended towards 
the west. In the twenties, some of the southern 
counties of Virginia were attempting its cultivation ;^ 
interior counties of North Carolina were combining 
cotton-raising with their old industries; in South 
Carolina the area of cotton and slavery had ex- 
tended up the rivers well beyond the middle of the 
state ;^ while in Georgia the cotton planters, so long 
restrained by the Indian line, broke through the bar- 
riers and spread over the newly ceded lands."* The 
accompanying table shows the progress of this crop : 
It is evident from the figures that tidewater South 
Carolina and Georgia produced practically all of the 
cotton crop in 1791, when the total was but two 
million pounds. By 182 1 the old south produced 
one hundred and seventeen million pounds, and, 
five years later, one hundred and eighty millions. 
But how rapidly in these five years the recently 
settled southwest was overtaking the older section 

* M. B. Hammond, Cotton Industry, chaps, i., ii.; Von Halle, 
" Baumwollproduktion," in SchmoUer, Staats und Social-wissen- 
schajtliche Forschungen, XV. 

' Va. Const. Conv., Debates (1829- 1830), ^^3' 33^'> Martin, 
Gazetteer of Va. and D. C. (1836), 99. 

' Schaper, " Sectionalism and Representation in S. C," in Am. 
Hist. Assoc. Report, 1900, I., 387-393. 

* PhilKps, "Georgia and State Rights," in Ibid., 1901, II., 
140 (map). 



2 26 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 
COTTON CROP (in million pounds)' 





1791 


1 80 1 


181 1 


1 82 1 


1826 


1834 


South Carolina 

Georgia 

Virginia 

North Carolina 


1-5 

•5 


20.0 
10. 

5-0 
4.0 


40.0 

20.0 

8.0 

7.0 


50.0 
45-0 
12.0 
10. 


70.0 

75-0 
25.0 
10 .0 


65-5 
75-0 
10. 

9-5 


Total 


2 .0 


390 


75-0 


117 .0 


180.0 


160.0 


Tennessee. . . . 

Louisiana 

Mississippi . . . 

Alabama 

Florida 

Arkansas 




1 .0 


3-0 
2 .0 


20.0 
10. 
10 .0 
20.0 


45-0 
38.0 
20.0 

45-0 
2 .0 

•5 


45-0 
62 .0 
85.0 
85.0 
20.0 
•5 


Total 




1 .0 


5-0 


60 .0 


150-5 


297-5 


Grand Total. 


2.0 


40.0 


80.0 


177.0 


33° ■ 5 


457-5 



is shown by its total of over one hundred and fifty 
millions. By 1834 the southwest had distanced the 
older section. What had occurred was a repeated 
westward movement: the cotton-plant first spread 
from the sea - coast to the uplands, and then, by 
the beginning of our period, advanced to the Gulf 
plains, until that region achieved supremacy in its 
production. 

How deeply the section was interested in this crop, 
and how influential it was in the commerce of the 
United States, appears from the fact that, in 1820, 
the domestic exports of South Carolina and Georgia 

' Based on MacGregor, Commercial Statistics, 462 ; of. De Bow's 
Review, XVIL, 428; Von Halle, Baumwollproduktion, 169; Secre- 
tary of Treasury, Report, 1855-1856, p. 116. There are dis- 
crepancies; the figures are to be taken as illustrative rather than 
exact; e. g., De Bow gives seventy million pounds for Missis- 
sippi in 1826. 



1830] THE SOUTH 227 

amounted to $15,215,000, while the value of the 
whole domestic exports for all the rest of the United 
States was $36,468,000.* This, however, inadequate- 
ly represents the value of the exports from these two 
cotton states, because a large fraction of the cotton 
was carried by the coastwise trade to northern ports 
and appeared in their shipments. Senator William 
Smith, of South Carolina, estimated that in 181 8 the 
real exports of South Carolina and Georgia amounted 
to "more than half as much as that of the other 
states of the Union, including the vast and fertile 
valley of the Mississippi." The average annual 
amount of the exports of cotton, tobacco, and rice 
from the United States between 1821 and 1830 was 
about thirty-three million dollars, while all other 
domestic exports made a sum of but twenty million 
dollars.^ Even greater than New England's interest 
in the carrying-trade was the interest of the south 
in the exchange of her great staples in the markets 
of Europe. 

Never in history, perhaps, was an economic force 
more influential upon the life of a people. As the 
production of cotton increased, the price fell, and 
the seaboard south, feeling the competition of the 
virgin soils of the southwest, saw in the protective 
tariff for the development of northern manu- 
factures the real source of her distress. The 
price of cotton was in these years a barometer 

' Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), p. 57. 
'Ibid., 518. 



2 28 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

of southern prosperity and of southern discon- 
tent. » 

Even more important than the effect of cotton 
production upon the prosperity of the south was 
its effect upon her social system. This economic 
transformation resuscitated slavery from a mori- 
bund condition to a vigorous and aggressive life. 
Slowly Virginia and North Carolina came to realize 
that the burden and expense of slavery as the labor 
system for their outworn tobacco and corn fields was 
partly counteracted by the demand for their surplus 
negroes in the cotton-fields of their more southern 
neighbors. When the lower south accepted the sys- 
tem as the basis of its prosperity and its society, 
the tendency in the states of the upper south, ex- 
cept in the pine barrens and the hill country, to 
look upon the institution as a heritage to be re- 
luctantly and apologetically accepted grew fainter. 
The efforts to find some mode of removing the negro 
from their midst gradually came to an end, and they 
adjusted themselves to slavery as a permanent sys- 
tem. Meanwhile, South Carolina and Georgia found 
in the institution the source of their economic well- 
being and hotly challenged the right of other sec- 
tions to speak ill of it or meddle with it in any way, 
lest their domestic security be endangered.' 

* See chap, xix., Turner's Rise of the New West; M. B, Hammond, 
Cotton Industry, part i., App. i.; Donnell, Hist, of Cotton; Watkins, 
Production and Prices of Cotton. 

^ See Hart, Slavery and Abolition {Am. Nation, XVI.). 



1830] THE SOUTH 229 

When the south became fully conscious that sla- 
very set the section apart from the rest of the na- 
tion, when it saw in nationalizing legislation, such as 
protection to manufactures and the construction of 
a system of internal improvements, the efforts of 
other sections to deprive the cotton states of their 
profits for the benefit of an industrial development 
in which they did not share, deep discontent pre- 
vailed. With but slight intermission from the days 
of Washington to those of Monroe, the tobacco 
planters under the Virginia dynasty had ruled the 
nation. But now, when the centre of power within 
the section passed from the weakening hands of 
Virginia to those of South Carolina, the aggressive 
leader of the Cotton Kingdom, the south found 
itself a minority section in the Union. When it 
realized this, it denied the right of the majority to 
rule, and proceeded to elaborate a system of minority 
rights as a protection against the forces of national 
development, believing that these forces threatened 
the foundations of the prosperity and even the social 
safety of the south. 

From the middle of the eighteenth century the 
seaboard planters had been learning the lesson of 
control by a fraction of the population. The south 
was by no means a unified region in its physiography. 
The Blue Ridge cut off the low country of Virginia 
from the Shenandoah Valley, and beyond this val- 
ley the Alleghanies separated the rest of the state 
from those counties which we now know as West 

16 



230 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Virginia. By the time of the Revolution, in the 
Carolinas and Georgia, a belt of pine barrens, skirt- 
ing the "fall line" from fifty to one hundred miles 
from the coast, divided the region of tidewater 
planters of these states from the small farmers of 
the up-country. This population of the interior had 
entered the region in the course of the second half of 
the eighteenth century. Scotch-Irishmen and Ger- 
mans passed down the Great Valley from Penn- 
sylvania into Virginia, and through the gaps in the 
Blue Ridge out to the Piedmont region of the 
Carolinas, while contemporaneously other streams 
from Charleston advanced to meet them.* Thus, 
at the close of the eighteenth century, the south was 
divided into two areas presenting contrasted types 
of civilization. On the one side were the planters, 
raising their staple crops of tobacco, rice, and in- 
digo, together with some cultivation of the cereals. 
To this region belonged the slaves. On the other 
side was this area of small farmers, raising live- 
stock, wheat, and corn under the same conditions 
of pioneer farming as characterized the interior of 
Pennsylvania. 

From the second half of the eighteenth century 
down to the time with which this volume deals, 
there was a persistent struggle between the planters 
of the coast, who controlled the wealth of the region, 
and the free farmers of the interior of Maryland, 

' Bassett, in Am. Hist. Assoc, Report 1S94, p. 141; Schaper, 
ibid., 1900, I., 317; Phillips, ibid., 1901, II., 88. 



1830] THE SOUTH 231 

Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The tideM^ater 
counties retained the political power which they 
already possessed before this tide of settlement 
flowed into the back-country. Refusing in most of 
these states to reapportion on the basis of numbers, 
they protected their slaves and their wealth against 
the dangers of a democracy interested in internal 
improvements and capable of imposing a tax upon 
slave property in order to promote their ends. In 
Virginia, in 1825, for example, the western men com- 
plained that twenty counties in the upper country, 
with over two hundred and twenty thousand free 
white inhabitants, had no more weight in the gov- 
ernment than twenty counties on tidewater, contain- 
ing only about fifty thousand; that the six smallest 
counties in the state, compared with the six largest, 
enjoyed nearly ten times as much political power.* 
To the gentlemen planters of the seaboard, the idea 
of falling under the control of the farmers of the 
interior of the south seemed intolerable. 

It was only as slavery spread into the uplands, 
with the cultivation of cotton, that the lowlands be- 
gan to concede and to permit an increased power in 
the legislatures to the sections most nearly assimi- 
lated to the seaboard type. South Carolina achieved 
this end in 1808 by the plan of giving to the sea- 
board the control of one house, while the interior 
held the other; but it is to be noted that this con- 
cession was not made until slavery had pushed so 

^Alexandria Herald, June 13, 1825. 



232 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

far up the river-courses that the reapportionment 
preserved the control in the hands of slave-holding 
counties.* A similar course was followed by Vir- 
ginia in the convention of 1 829-1 830, when, after a 
long struggle, a compromise was adopted, by which 
the balance of power in the state legislature was 
transferred to the counties of the Piedmont and the 
Valley.^ Here slave-holding had progressed so far 
that the interest of those counties was affiliated 
rather with the coast than with the trans-Alleghany 
country. West Virginia remained a discontented 
area until her independent statehood in the days 
of the Civil War. These transmontane counties of 
Virginia were, in their political activity during our 
period, rather to be reckoned with the west than 
with the south. 

Thus the southern seaboard experienced the need 
of protecting the interests of its slave-holding plant- 
ers against the free democracy of the interior of 
the south itself, and learned how to safeguard the 
minority. This experience was now to serve the 
south, when, having attained unity by the spread 
of slavery into the interior, it found itself as a sec- 
tion in the same relation to the Union which the 
slave-holding tidewater area had held towards the 
more populous up-country of the south. 

'Calhoun, Works, I., 401; Schaper, Sectionalism and Repre- 
sentation in S. C, in Am. Hist. Assoc, Report 1900, 1., 434-437. 

^ Va. Const. Conv., Debates (1829-1830); Chandler, Repre- 
sentation in Va.,in Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, X.l'V., 286-298. 



1830I THE SOUTH 233 

The unification of the section is one of the most 
important features of the period. Not only had the 
south been divided into opposing areas, as we have 
seen, but even its population was far from homo- 
geneous. By the period of this volume, however, 
English, French-Huguenots, Scotch-Irish, and Ger- 
mans had become assimilated into one people, and 
the negroes, who in 1830 in the South Atlantic 
states numbered over a million and a half in a white 
population of not much over two millions, were dif- 
fusing themselves throughout the area of the section 
except in West Virginia and the mountains. Con- 
temporaneously the pioneer farming type of the inte- 
rior of the section was replaced by the planter type.* 

As cotton-pla'nting and slave-holding advanced 
into the interior counties of the old southern states, 
the free farmers were obliged either to change to the 
plantation economy and buy slaves, or to sell their 
lands and migrate. Large numbers of them, par- 
ticularly in the Carolinas, were Quakers or Baptists, 
whose religious scruples combined with their agricult- 
ural habits to make this change obnoxious. This 
upland country, too distant from the sea-shore to 
permit a satisfactory market, was a hive from which 
pioneers earlier passed into Kentucky and Tennes- 
see, until those states had become populous common- 
wealths. Now the exodus was increased by this 
later colonization.^ The Ohio was crossed, the Mis- 

^ Niks' Register, XXL, 132; cf. p. 55 below. 
2 See chap. v. Turner's Rise of the New West. 



234 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

souri ascended, and the streams that flowed to the 
Gulf were followed by movers away from the regions 
that were undergoing this social and economic re- 
construction. 

This industrial revolution was effective in different 
degrees in the different states. Comparatively few 
of Virginia's slaves, which by 1830 numbered nearly 
half a million, were found in her trans-Alleghany 
counties, but the Shenandoah Valley was receiving 
slaves and changing to the plantation type. In 
North Carolina the slave population of nearly two 
hundred and fifty thousand, at the same date, had 
spread well into the interior, but cotton did not 
achieve the position there which it held farther 
south. The interior farmers worked small farms of 
wheat and corn, laboring side by side with their 
negro slaves in the fields.* South Carolina had over 
three hundred thousand slaves — ^more than a ma- 
jority of her population — and the black belt ex- 
tended to the interior. Georgia's slaves, amounting 
to over two hundred thousand, somewhat less than 
half her population, steadily advanced from the 
coast and the Savannah River towards the cotton- 
lands of the interior, pushing before them the less 
prosperous farmers, who found new homes to the 
north or south of the cotton-belt or migrated to the 
southwestern frontier.^ Here, as in North Carolina, 

' Bassett, Slavery in N. C, in Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, 
XVII., 324, 399. 

* Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, in Am. Hist. Assoc, Re- 
port 1901, II., 106. 



1830] THE SOUTH 23 s 

the planters in the interior of the state frequently 
followed the plough or encouraged their slaves by 
wielding the hoe/ 

Thus this process of economic transformation 
passed from the coast towards the mountain barrier, 
gradually eliminating the inharmonious elements 
and steadily tending to produce a solidarity of inter- 
ests. The south as a whole was becoming, for the 
first time since colonial days, a staple-producing 
region; and, as diversified farming declined, the 
region tended to become dependent for its supplies 
of meat products, horses, and mules, and even hay 
and cereals, upon the north and west. 

The westward migration of its people checked the 
growth of the south. It had colonized the new 
west at the same time that the middle region had 
been rapidly growing in population, and the result 
was that the proud states of the southern seaboard 
were reduced to numerical inferiority. Like New 
England, it was an almost stationary section. From 
1820 to 1830 the states of this group gained little 
more than half a million souls, hardly more than 
the increase of the single state of New York. Vir- 
ginia, with a population of over a million, increased 
but 13.7 per cent., and the Carolinas only 15.5 per 
cent. In the next decade these tendencies were 
even more clearly shown, for Virginia and the Caro- 
linas then gained but little more than 2 per cent. 

* Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, in Am. Hist. Assoc., Re- 
port 1901, II., 107. 



236 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Georgia alone showed rapid increase. At the be- 
ginning of the decade the Indians still held all of 
the territory west of Macon, at the centre of the 
state, with the exception of two tiers of counties 
along the southern border; and, when these lands 
were opened towards the close of the decade, they 
were occupied by a rush of settlement similar to 
the occupation of Oklahoma and Indian Territory 
in our own day. What Maine was to New Eng- 
land, that Georgia was to the southern seaboard, 
with the difference that it was deeply touched by 
influences characteristically western. Because of 
the traits of her leaders, and the rude, aggressive 
policy of her people, Georgia belonged at least as 
much to the west as to the south. From colonial 
times the Georgia settlers had been engaged in an 
almost incessant struggle against the savages on 
her border, and had the instincts of a frontier so- 
ciety.^ 

From 1800 to 1830, throughout the tidewater 
region, there were clear evidences of decline. As 
the movement of capital and population towards the 
interior went on, wealth was drained from the coast; 
and, as time passed, the competition of the fertile 
and low-priced lands of the Gulf basin proved too 
strong for the outworn lands even of the interior of 
the south. Under the wasteful system of tobacco 
and cotton culture, without replenishment of the 

^ Ibid., II., 88; hongstreet, Georgia Scenes; Gilmer, Sketches; 
Miss. Hist. Soc, Publications, VIII., 443. 



i83o] THE SOUTH 237 

soil, the staple areas would, in any case, have de- 
clined in value. Even the corn and wheat lands 
were exhausted by unscientific farming.^ Writing in 
1 8 14 to Josiah Quincy,^ John Randolph of Roanoke 
lamented the decline of the seaboard planters. He 
declared that the region was now sunk in obscurity : 
what enterprise or capital there was in the cotmtry 
had retired westward; deer and wild turkeys were 
not so plentiful anywhere in Kentucky as near the 
site of the ancient Virginia capital, Williamsburg. 
In the Virginia convention of 1829, Mr. Mercer esti- 
mated that in 181 7 land values in Virginia aggre- 
gated two hundred and six million dollars, and 
negroes averaged three hundred dollars, while in 
1829 the land values did not surpass ninety millions, 
and slaves had fallen in value to one hundred and 
fifty dollars.^ 

In a speech in the Virginia House of Delegates, 
in 1832, Thomas Marshall^ asserted that the whole 
agricultural product of Virginia did not exceed in 
value the exports of eighty or ninety years before, 
when it contained not one-sixth of the population. 
In his judgment, the greater proportion of the larger 
plantations, with from fifty to one hundred slaves, 

1 Gooch, Prize Essay on Agriculture in Va., in Lynchburg 
Virginian, July 4, 1833; Martin, Gazetteer of Va., 99, 100. 

* E. Quincy, Josiah Quincy, 353. 

' Va. Const. Conv., Debates (1829-1830), 178; Collins, Domes- 
tic Slave Trade, 26. 

* Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 24, cited from Richmond En- 
quirer, February, 2, 1832. 



238 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

brought the proprietors into debt, and rarely did a 
plantation yield one and a half per cent, profit on 
the capital. So great had become the depression 
that Randolph prophesied that the time was coming 
when the masters would run away from the slaves 
and be advertised by them in the public papers.* 

It was in this period that Thomas Jefferson fell 
into such financial embarrassments that he was 
obliged to request of the legislature of Virginia per- 
mission to dispose of property by lottery to pay his 
debts, and that a subscription was taken up to 
relieve his distress.^ At the same time, Madison, 
having vainly tried to get a loan from the United 
States Bank, was forced to dispose of some of his 
lands and stocks ; ^ and Monroe, at the close of his 
term of office, found himself financially ruined. He 
gave up Oak Hill and spent his declining years with 
his son-in-law in New York City. The old-time tide- 
water mansions, where, in an earlier day, everybody 
kept open house, gradually fell into decay. 

Sad indeed was the spectacle of Virginia's ancient 
aristocracy. It had never been a luxurious society. 
The very wealthy planters, with vast cultivated 
estates and pretentious homes, were in the minority. 
For the most part, the houses were moderate frame 
structures, set at intervals of a mile or so apart, 
often in parklike grounds, with long avenues of 
trees. The plantation was a little world in itself. 

' Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 26. 

*Randall,ye^^r^on, III., 527, 561. ' Hnni, Madison, 380. 



1830] THE SOUTH 239 

Here was made much of the clothing for the slaves, 
and the mistress of the plantation supervised the 
spinning and weaving. Leather was tanned on the 
place, and blacksmithing, wood-working, and other 
industries were carried on, often under the direc- 
tion of white mechanics. The planter and his wife 
commonly had the care of the black families whom 
they possessed, looked after them when they were 
sick, saw to their daily rations, arranged marriages, 
and determined the daily tasks of the plantation. 
The abundant hospitality between neighbors gave 
opportunity for social cultivation, and politics was 
a favorite subject of conversation. 

The leading planters served as justices of the peace, 
but they were not dependent for their selection upon 
the popular vote. Appointed by the governor on 
nomination of the court itself, they constituted a 
kind of close corporation, exercising local judicial, 
legislative, and executive functions. The sheriff 
was appointed by the governor from three justices 
of the peace recommended by the court, and the 
court itself appointed the county clerk. Thus the 
county government of Virginia was distinctly aristo- 
cratic. County-court day served as an opportunity 
for bringing together the freeholders, who included 
not only the larger planters, but the small farmers 
and the poor whites — hangers-on of the greater 
plantations. Almost no large cities were found in 
Virginia. The court-house was hardly more than a 
meeting-place for the rural population. Here farm- 



240 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

ers exchanged their goods, traded horses, often 
fought, and listened to the stump speeches of the 
orators.* 

Such were, in the main, the characteristics of that 
homespun plantation aristocracy which, through 
the Virginia dynasty, had ruled the nation in the 
days of Washington, JefTerson, Madison, and Mon- 
roe. As their lands declined in value, they naturally 
sought for an explanation and a remedy.' The ex- 
planation was found most commonly in the charge 
that the protective tariff was destroying the pros- 
perity of the south ; and in reaction they turned to 
demand the old days of Jeffersonian rural simplicity, 
under the guardianship of state rights and a strict 
construction of the Constitution, Madison in vain 
laid the fall in land values in Virginia to the uncer- 
tainty and low prices of the crops, to the quantity 
of land thrown on the market, and the attractions 
of the cheaper and better lands beyond the moun- 
tains.' 

Others called attention to the fact that the semi- 
annual migration towards the west and southwest, 
which swept off enterprising portions of the people 
and much of the capital and movable property of 
the state, also kept down the price of land by the 
great quantities thereby thrown into the market. 
Instead of applying a system of scientific farming 

' Johnson, ivoZvr/ Lcivis Dahncy, 14-24; Smedes, ^4 Southern 
Planter, 34-37. 'Randall, Jefferson, III., 532. 

^Madison, Writings (ed. of 1S65), III., 614. 



1830] THE SOUTH 241 

and replenishment of the soil, there was a tendency 
for the planters who remained to get into debt in 
order to add to their possessions the farms which 
were offered for sale by the movers. Thus there was 
a flow of wealth towards the west to pay for these 
new purchases. The overgrown plantations soon be- 
gan to look tattered and almost desolate, "Galled 
and gullied hill -sides and sedgy, briary fields"* 
showed themselves in every direction. Finally the 
planter found himself obliged to part with some of 
his slaves, in response to the demand from the new 
cotton -fields; or to migrate himself, with his caravan 
of negroes, to open a new home in the Gulf region. 
During the period of this survey the price for prime 
field -hands in Georgia averaged a little over seven 
hundred dollars.^ If the estimate of one hundred 
and fifty dollars for negroes sold in family lots in 
Virginia is correct, it is clear that economic laws 
would bring about a condition where Virginia's re- 
sources would in part depend upon her supply of 
slaves to the cotton-belt.^ It is clear, also, that the 
Old Dominion had passed the apogee of her political 
power. 

It was not only the planters of Virginia that suf- 
fered in this period of change. As the more ex- 
tensive and fertile cotton-fields of the new states 
of the southwest opened. North Carolina and even 

^Lynchburg Virginian, July 4, 1833. 
'Phillips, in Pol. Set. Quart., XX., 267. 
' Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 42-46. 



242 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

South Carolina found themselves embarrassed. 
With the fall in cotton prices, already mentioned, it 
became increasingly necessary to possess the advan- 
tages of large estates and unexhausted soils, in or- 
der to extract a profit from this cultivation. From 
South Carolina there came a protest more vehe- 
ment and aggressive than that of the discontented 
classes of Virginia. Already the indigo plantation 
had ceased to be profitable and the rice planters no 
longer held their old prosperity. 

Charleston was peculiarly suited to lead in a 
movement of revolt. It was the one important 
centre of real city life of the seaboard south of 
Baltimore. Here every February the planters gath- 
ered from their plantations, thirty to one himdred 
and fifty miles away, for a month in their town 
houses. At this season, races, social gayeties, and po- 
litical conferences vied with one another in engaging 
the attention of the planters. Returning to their 
plantations in the early spring, they remained until 
June, when considerations of health compelled them 
either again to return to the city, to visit the moun- 
tains, or to go to such watering-places as Saratoga 
in New York. Here again they talked politics and 
mingled with political leaders of the north. It was 
not until the fall that they were able to return again 
to their estates.* Thus South Carolina, affording a 
combination of plantation life with the social inter- 
course of the city, gave peculiar opportunities for 

•Hodgson, Letters from North America, I., 50. 



1832] THE SOUTH 243 

exchanging ideas and consolidating the sentiment of 
her leaders. 

The condition of South Carolina was doubtless 
exaggerated by Hayne, in his speech in the Senate 
in 1832, when he characterized it as "not merely one 
of unexampled depression, but of great and all-per- 
vading distress," with "the mournful evidence of 
premature decay," "merchants bankrupt or driven 
away — their capital sunk or transferred to other 
pursuits — our shipyards broken up — our ships all 
sold!" "If," said he, "we fly from the city to the 
country, what do we there behold ? Fields abandon- 
ed; the hospitable mansions of our fathers deserted; 
agriculture drooping; our slaves, like their masters, 
working harder, and faring worse ; the planter striv- 
ing with unavailing efforts to avert the ruin which is 
before him." He drew a sad picture of the once 
thriving planter, reduced to despair, gathering up the 
small remnants of his broken fortune, and, with his 
wife and little ones, tearing himself from the scenes 
of his childhood and the bones of his ancestors to 
seek in the wilderness the reward for his industry of 
which the policy of Congress had deprived him.* 

The genius of the south expressed itself most 
clearly in the field of politics. If the democratic 
middle region could show a multitude of clever 
politicians, the aristocratic south possessed an 

* Register of Debates, VIII., pt. i., 80; cf. Houston, Nullification 
in S. C., 46; McDuffie, in Register of Debates, i8th Cong., 2 Sess., 
253- 



244 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

abundance of leaders bold in political initiative and 
masterful in their ability to use the talents of their 
northern allies. When the Missouri question was 
debated, John Quincy Adams remarked "that if 
institutions are to be judged by their results in the 
composition of the councils of this Union, the slave- 
holders are much more ably represented than the 
simple freemen," * 

The southern statesmen fall into two classes. On 
the one side was the Virginia group, now for the most 
part old men, rich in the honors of the nation, still 
influential, but, except for Monroe, no longer direct- 
ing party policy. Jefferson and Madison were in 
retirement in their old age ; Marshall, as chief-justice, 
was continuing his career as the expounder of the 
Constitution in accordance with Federalist ideals; 
John Randolph, his old eccentricities increased by 
disease and intemperance, remained to proclaim the 
extreme doctrines of southern dissent and to impale 
his adversaries with javelins of flashing wit. A 
maker of phrases which stung and festered, he was 
still capable of influencing public opinion somewhat 
in the same way as are the cartoonists of modern 
times. But "his course through life had been like 
that of the arrow which Alcestes shot to heaven, 
which effected nothing useful, though it left a long 
stream of light behind it." ' In North Carolina, the 
venerable Macon remained to protest like a later 

■ Adams, Memoirs, IV., 506. 

* Lytichburg Virginian, May g, 1833. 



1830] THE SOUTH 245 

Cato against the tendencies of the times and to 
raise a warning voice to his fellow slave-holders 
against national consolidation. 

In the course of this decade, the effective lead- 
ership of the south fell to Calhoun and Crawford.* 
About these statesmen were grouped energetic and 
able men like Hayne, McDuffie, and Hamilton of 
South Carolina, and Cobb and Forsyth of Georgia 
— men who sometimes pushed their leaders on in 
a sectional path which the latter 's caution or per- 
sonal ambitions made them reluctant to tread. 
Nor must it be forgotten that early in the decade 
the south lost two of her greatest statesmen, the 
I wise and moderate Lowndes, of South Carolina, 
j and Pinkney, the brilliant Maryland orator. In 
• the course of the ten years which we are to sketch, 
' the influence of economic change within this sec- 
I tion transformed the South Carolinians from warm 
^ supporters of a liberal national policy into the 
; straitest of the sect of state - sovereignty advo- 
I cates, intent upon raising barriers against the flood 
' of nationalism that threatened to overwhelm the 
j south. In relating the changing policy of the 
{ southern political leaders, we shall again observe the 
1 progress and the effects of the economic transfor- 
; mations which it has been the purpose of this chap- 
ter to portray. 

17 1 See chap xi. Turner's Rise of the New West. 



CHAPTER XIV 

COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 
(1820-1830) 

THE rise of the new west wris the most significant 
fact in American history in the years imme- 
diately following the War of 181 2. Ever since the 
beginnings of colonization on the Atlantic coast a 
frontier of settlement had advanced, cutting into 
the forest, pushing back the Indian, and steadily 
widening the area of civilization in its rear,* There 
had been a west even in early colonial days; but 
then it lay close to the coast. By the middle of 
the eighteenth century the west was to be found 
beyond tide-water, advancing towards the Alleghany 
Mountains. When this barrier was crossed and the 
lands on the other side of the mountains were won, in 
the days of the Revolution, a new and greater west, 
more influential on the nation's destiny, was created.' 

'Three articles by F. J. Turner, viz.: " Sigriificance of the 
Frontier in American History," in Am. Hist. Assoc, Ref^ort 
180,^. Too-227; "Problem of the West," in "Atlantic Monthly, 
LXXVIII., 289; "Contributions of the West to American De- 
mocracy," rhiil., XCI., 83. 

* Howard, Preliminaries of Revolution, chap, xiii.; Van Tyne, 
Am. Revolution, chap, xv.; McLaughlin, Confederation and Con- 
stitution, chap. viii. (Am. Nation, VIII., IX., X.). 



i82o] WESTERN COLONIZATION 247 

The men of the "Western Waters" or the "West- 
ern World," as they loved to call themselves, devel- 
oped under conditions of separation from the older 
settlements and from Europe. The lands, practi- 
cally free, in this vast area not only attracted the 
settler, but furnished opportunity for all men to hew- 
out their own careers. The wilderness ever opened 
a gate of escape to the poor, the discontented, and 
the oppressed. If social conditions tended to crys- 
tallize in the east, beyond the Alleghanies there 
was freedom. Grappling with new problems, under 
these conditions, the society that spread into this 
region developed inventiveness and resourcefulness; 
the restraints of custom were broken, and new activi- 
ties, new lines of growth, new institutions were pro- 
duced. Mr. Bryce has well declared that "the West 
is the most American part of America. . , . What 
Europe is to Asia, what England is to the rest of 
Europe, what America is to England, that the 
Western States and Territories are to the Atlantic 
States."' The American spirit — the traits that 
have come to be recognized as the most characteris- 
tic — was developed in the new commonwealths that 
sprang into life beyond the seaboard. In these new 
western lands Americans achieved a boldness of 
conception of the country's destiny and democracy. 
The ideal of the west was its emphasis upon the 
worth and possibilities of the common man, its 
belief in the right of every man to rise to the full 

' Bryce, American Commonwealth (ed. of 1895), II., 830. 



248 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

measure of his own nature, under conditions of 
social mobility. Western democracy was no theo- 
rist's dream. It came, stark and strong and full of 
life, from the American forest.' 

THie time had now come when this section was to 
make itself felt as a dominant force in American 
life. Already it had shown its influence upon the 
older sections. By its competition, by its attrac- 
tions fpr settlers, it reacted on the east and gave 
added impulse to the democratic movement in New 
England and New York. The struggle of Balti- 
more, New York City, and Philadelphia for the 
rising commerce of the interior was a potent factor 
in the development of the middle region. In the 
south the spread of the cotton-plant and the new 
form which slavery took were phases of the west- 
ward movement of the plantation. The discontent 
of the old south is partly explained by the migra- 
tion of her citizens to the west and by the compe- 
tition of her colonists in the lands beyond the Alle- 
ghanies. The future of the south lay in its affiliation 
to the Cotton Kingdom of the lower states which 
were rising on the plains of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Rightly to understand the power which the new 
west was to exert upon the economic and poHtical 
life of the nation in the years between 1820 and 
1830, it is necessary to consider somewhat fully the 

* F. J. Turner, " Contributions of the West to American De- 
mocracy," in Atlantic Monthly, XCI., 83, and "The Middle 
West," in International Monthly, IV., 794. 



1830] W'ESTERX COLOXIZATIOX 249 

statistics of gro"«i:h in western population and in- 
dustry. 

The western states ranked with the middle region 
and the south in respect to population. Between 
1 81 2 and 182 1 six new western commonwealths ^-ere 
added to the Union: Louisiana (181 2), Indiana 
(1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama 
(1819), and Missouri (1821). In the decade from 
1820 to 1830, these states, with their older^ sisters, 
Kentucky', Tennessee, and Ohio, increased their 
population from 2.217,000 to nearly 3,700,000, a 
gain of about a million and a half in the decade. 
The percentages of increase in these new communi- 
ties tell a striking stor}'. Even the older states of 
the group grew steadily. Kentucky*, with 22 per 
cent., Louisiana, with 41, and Tennessee and Ohio, 
each with 61, were increasing much faster than New 
England and the south, outside of Maine and 
Georgia. But for the newer communities the per- 
centages of gain are still more significant: Missis- 
sippi, 81 per cent.; Alabama, 142; Indiana, 133; 
and Illinois, 185. The population of Ohio, which 
hardly more than a generation before was "fresh, 
imtouched, unbotmded, magnificent wilderness," * 
was now nearly a million, surpassing the combined 
population of Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

A new section had arisen and was growing at such 
a rate that a description of it in any single year 
would be falsified before it cotild be published. Xor 

* "Webster, Writings (National ed.), V., 252. 



250 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

is the whole strength of the western element re- 
vealed by these figures. In order to estimate the 
weight of the western population in 1830, we must 
add six hundred thousand souls in the western half 
of New York, three hundred thousand in the inte- 
rior counties of Pennsylvania, and over two hun- 
dred thousand in the trans-Alleghany counties of 
Virginia, making an aggregate of four million six 
hundred thousand. Fully to reckon the forces of 
backvvoods democracy, moreover, we should include 
a large fraction of the interior population of Maine, 
New Hampshire, and Vermont, North Carolina, and 
Georgia, and northern New York. All of these re- 
gions were to be influenced by the ideals of demo- 
cratic rule which were springing up in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. 

In voting-power the western states alone — to say 
nothing of the interior districts of the older states — 
were even more important than the figures for popu- 
lation indicate. The west itself had, under the ap- 
portionment of 1822, forty-seven out of the two 
hundred and thirteen members of the House of 
Representatives, while in the Senate its representa- 
tion was eighteen out of forty -eight — more than that 
of any other section. Clearly, here was a region to 
be reckoned with ; its economic interests, its ideals, 
and its political leaders were certain to have a power- 
ful, if not a controlling, voice in the councils of the 
nation. 

At the close of the War of 181 2 the west had much 



1830] WESTERN COLONIZATION 251 

homogeneity. Parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
Ohio had been settled so many years that they no 
longer presented typical western conditions; but 
in most of its area the west then was occupied by 
pioneer farmers and stock-raisers, eking out their 
larder and getting peltries by hunting, and raising 
only a small surplus for market. By 1830, how- 
ever, industrial differentiation between the northern 
and southern portions of the Mississippi Valley was 
clearly marked. The northwest was changing to a 
land of farmers and town-builders, anxious for a 
market for their grain and cattle; while the south- 
west was becoming increasingly a cotton-raising sec- 
tion, swayed by the same impulses in respect to 
staple exports as those which governed the southern 
seaboard. Economically, the northern portion of 
the valley tended to connect itself with the middle 
states, while the southern portion came into increas- 
ingly intimate connection with the south. Never- 
theless, it would be a radical mistake not to deal 
with the west as a separate region, for, with all these 
differences within itself, it possessed a fundamental 
unity in its social structure and its democratic ideals, 
and at times, in no uncertain way, it showed a con- 
sciousness of its separate existence. 

In occupying the Mississippi Valley the American 
people colonized a region far surpassing in area the 
territory of the old thirteen states. The movement 
was, indeed, but the continuation of the advance of 
the frontier which had begun in the earliest days of 



252 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1815 

American colonization. The existence of a great 
body of land, offered at so low a price as to be prac- 
tically free, inevitably drew population towards the 
west. When wild lands sold for two dollars an acre, 
and, indeed, could be occupied by squatters almost 
without molestation, it was certain that settlers 
would seek them instead of paying twenty to fifty 
dollars an acre for farms that lay not much farther 
to the east — particularly when the western lands 
were more fertile. The introduction of the steam- 
boat on the western waters in 181 1, moreover, 
soon revolutionized transportation conditions in the 
West.' At the beginning of the period of which we 
are treating, steamers were ascending the Mississippi 
and the Missouri, as well as the Ohio and its tribu- 
taries. Between the close of the War of 181 2 and 
1830, moreover, the Indian title was extinguished 
to vast regions in the west. Half of Michigan was 
opened to settlement; the northwestern quarter of 
Ohio was freed ; in Indiana and Illinois (more than 
half of which had been Indian country prior to 181 6) 
all but a comparatively small region of undesired 
prairie lands south of Lake Michigan was ceded; 
almost the whole state of Missouri was freed from 
its Indian title; and, in the Gulf region, at the close 
of the decade, the Indians held but two isolated 

* Flint, Letters, 260; Monette, in Miss. Hist. Soc, Publications, 
VII., 503; Hall, Statistics of the West, 236, 247; Lloyd, Steam- 
boat Disasters (1853), 32, 40-45; Preble, Steam Navigation, 64; 
McMaster, United States, IV., 402; Chittenden, Early Steamboat 
Navigation on the Missouri, chap. ix. 



1830] WESTERN COLONIZATION 253 

islands of territory, one in western Georgia and 
eastern Alabama, and the other in northern and 
central Mississippi. These ceded regions were the 
fruit of the victories of William Henry Harrison in 
the northwest, and of Andrew Jackson in the Gulf 
region. They were, in effect, conquered provinces, 
just opened to colonization. 

The maps of the United States census, giving the 
distribution of population in 1810, 1820, and 1830,* 
exhibit clearly the effects of the defeat of the Indians, 
and shov/ the areas that were occupied in these years. 
In 1 8 10 settlement beyond the mountains was al- 
most limited to a zone along the Ohio River and its 
tributaries, the Cumberland and the Tennessee. In 
the southwest, the vicinity of Mobile showed sparse 
settlement, chiefly survivals of the Spanish and Eng- 
lish occupation; and, along the fluvial lands of the 
eastern bank of the lower Mississippi, in the Natchez 
region, as well as in the old province of Louisiana, 
there was a considerable area occupied by planters. 

By 1820 the effects of the War of 181 2 and the 
rising tide of westward migration became manifest. 
Pioneers spread along the river-courses of the north- 
west well up to the Indian boundary. The zone 
of settlement along the Ohio ascended the Missouri, 
in the rush to the Boone's Lick country, towards 
the centre of the present state. From the settle- 
ments of middle Tennessee a pioneer farming area 

'See maps of population; compare U. S. Census of 1900, 
Statistical Atlas, plates 4, 5, 6. 



2 54 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

reached southward to connect with the settlements 
of Mobile, and the latter became conterminous with 
those of the lower Mississippi. 

By 1830 large portions of these Indian lands, 
which were ceded between 1817 and 1829, received 
the same type of colonization. The unoccupied 
lands in Indiana and Illinois were prairie country, 
then deemed unsuited for settlement because of the 
lack of wood and drinking-water. It was the hard- 
woods that had been taken up in the northwest, 
and, for the most part, the tracts a little back from 
the unhealthful bottom-lands, but in close proxim- 
ity to the rivers, which were the only means of 
transportation before the building of good roads. 
A new island of settlement appeared in the north- 
western portion of Illinois and the adjacent regions 
of Wisconsin and Iowa, due to the opening of the 
lead-mines. Along the Missouri Valley and in the 
Gulf region the areas possessed in 1820 increased in 
density of population. Georgia spread her settlers 
into the Indian lands, which she had so recently 
secured by threatening a rupture with the United 
States.* 

Translated into terms of human activity, these 
shaded areas, encroaching on the blank spaces of the 
map, meant much for the history of the United 
States. Even in the northwest, which we shall first 
describe, they represent, in the main, the migration 

' MacDonald, Jacksonian Democracy {Am. Nation, XV.), 
chap. X. 



1830] WESTERN COLONIZATION 255 

of southern people. New England, after the distress 
following the War of 181 2 and the hard winter of 
1816-1817, had sent many settlers into western 
New York and Ohio ; the Western Reserve had in- 
creased in population by the immigration of Con- 
necticut people ; Pennsylvania and New Jersey had 
sent colonists to southern and central Ohio, with 
Cincinnati as the commercial centre. In Ohio the 
settlers of middle-state origin were decidedly more 
numerous than those from the south, and New 
England's share was distinctly smaller than that 
of the south. In the Ohio legislature in 1822 there 
were thirty-eight members of middle-state birth, 
thirty-three of southern (including Kentucky), and 
twenty-five of New England. But Kentucky and 
Tennessee (now sufficiently settled to need larger and 
cheaper farms for the rising generation), together 
with the up-country of the south, contributed the 
mass of the pioneer colonists to most of the Missis- 
sippi Valley prior to 1830.* Of course, a large frac- 
tion of these came from the Scotch-Irish and Ger- 
man stock that in the first half of the eighteenth 
century passed from Pennsylvania along the Great 
Valley to the up-country of the south, Indiana, so 
late as 1850, showed but ten thousand natives of 

^ See, for Ohio, Niles' Register, XXL, 368 (leg. session of 1822), 
and Nat. Republican, January 2, 1824; for Illinois in 1833, 
Western Monthly Magazine, I., 199; for Missouri convention of 
1820, Niles' Register, XVIII., 400; for Alabama in 1820, ibid., 
XX., 64. Local histories, travels, newspapers, and the census 
of 1850 support the text. 



256 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

New England, and twice as many persons of 
southern as of middle states origin. In the his- 
tory of Indiana, North Carolina contributed a large 
fraction of the population, giving to it its "Hoo- 
sier" as well as much of its Quaker stock. Illi- 
nois in this period had but a sprinkling of New- 
Englanders, engaged in business in the little towns. 
The southern stock, including settlers from Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, was the preponderant class. 
The Illinois legislature for 1833 contained fifty-eight 
from the south (including Kentucky and Tennessee), 
nineteen from the middle states, and only four from 
New England. Missouri's population was chiefly 
Kentuckians and Tennesseeans. 

The leaders of this southern clcracnt came, in 
considerable measure, from well-to-do classes, who 
migrated to improve their conditions in the freer 
opportunities of a new country. Land specula- 
tion, the opportunity of political preferment, and 
the advantages which these growing communities 
brought to practitioners of the law combined to 
attract men of this class. Many of them, as we shall 
see, brought their slaves with them, under the sys- 
tems of indenture which made this possible. Mis- 
souri, especially, was sought by planters with their 
slaves. But it was the poorer whites, the more 
democratic, non-slaveholding element of the south, 
which furnished the great bulk of the settlers north 
of the Ohio. Prior to the close of the decade the 
same farmer type was in possession of large parts of 



1830] WESTERN COLONIZATION 257 

the Gulf region, whither, through the whole of our 
period, the slave-holding planters came in increasing 
numbers. 

Two of the families which left Kentucky for the 
newer country in these years will illustrate the 
movement. The Lincoln family * had reached that 
state by migration from the north with the stream 
of backwoodsmen which bore along with it the Cal- 
houns and the Boones. Abraham Lincoln was born 
in a hilly, barren portion of Kentucky in 1809. In 
18 1 6, when Lincoln was a boy of seven, his father, 
a poor carpenter, took his family across the Ohio on 
a raft, with a capital consisting of his kit of tools 
and several hundred gallons of whiskey. In Indiana 
he hewed a path into the forest to a new home in the 
southern part of the state, where for a year the family 
lived in a "half -faced camp," or open shed of poles, 
clearing their land. In the hardships of the pio- 
neer life Lincoln's mother died, as did many another 
frontier woman. In 1830 Lincoln was a tall, strap- 
ping youth, six feet four inches in height, able to 
sink his axe deeper than other men into the opposing 
forest. At that time his father moved to the San- 
gamon country of Illinois with the rush of land- 
seekers into that new and popular region. Near the 
home of Lincoln in Kentucky was born, in 1808, 
Jefferson Davis, ^ whose father, shortly before the War 

' Tarbell, Lincoln, I., chaps, i.-iv. ; Hemdon, Lincoln, I., chaps, 
i.-iv.; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, I., chaps, i.-iii. 
' Mrs. Davis, Jefferson Davis, I., 5. 



2s8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1817 

of 181 2, went with the stream of southward movers 
to Louisiana and then to Mississippi. Davis's broth- 
ers fought under Jackson in the War of 181 2, and 
the family became typical planters of the Gulf re- 
gion. 

Meanwhile, the roads that led to the Ohio Valley 
were followed by an increasing tide of settlers from 
the east. "Old America seems to be breaking up, 
and moving westward," wrote Morris Birkbeck in 
181 7, as he passed on the National Road through 
Pennsylvania, " We are seldom out of sight, as we 
travel on this grand track, towards the Ohio, of 
family groups, behind and before us. ... A small 
waggon (so light that you might almost carry it, 
yet strong enough to bear a good load of bedding, 
utensils and provisions, and a swarm of young 
citizens, — and to sustain marvellous shocks in its 
passage over these rocky heights) with two small 
horses; sometimes a cow or two, comprises their 
all; excepting a little store of hard-earned cash 
for the land office of the district; where they may 
obtain a title for as many acres as they possess half- 
dollars, being one fourth of the purchase-money. 
The waggon has a tilt, or cover, made of a sheet, 
or perhaps a blanket. The family are seen before, 
behind, or within the vehicle, according to the road 
or the weather, or perhaps the spirits of the party. 
... A cart and single horse frequently affords the 
means of transfer, sometimes a horse and pack- 
saddle. Often the back of the poor pilgrim bears 



i8i7] WESTERN COLONIZATION 259 

all his effects, and his wife follows, naked-footed, 
bending under the hopes of the family." * 

The southerners who came by land along the many 
bad roads through Tennessee and Kentucky usually 
travelled with heavy, long-bodied wagons, drawn 
by four or six horses.^ These family groups, crowd- 
ing roads and fords, marching towards the sun- 
set, with the canvas-covered wagon, ancestor of the 
prairie-schooner of the later times, were typical of 
the overland migration. The poorer classes travelled 
on foot, sometimes carrying their entire effects in a 
cart drawn by themselves.^ Those of more means 
took horses, cattle, and sheep, and sometimes sent 
their household goods by wagon or by steamboat 
up the Mississippi.^ 

The routes of travel to the western country were 
numerous.^ Prior to the opening of the Erie Canal 
the New England element either passed along the 
Mohawk and the Genesee turnpike to Lake Erie, 
or crossed the Hudson and followed the line of the 
Catskill turnpike to the headwaters of the Alle- 
gheny, or, by way of Boston, took ship to New York, 
Philadelphia, or Baltimore, in order to follow a more 
southerly route. In Pennsylvania the principal 
route was the old road which, in a general way, 

* Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey from Va. to III., 25, 26. 
" Hist. 0} Grundy County, III., 149. 

•■' Niles' Register, XXL, 320. 

* Howells, Life in Ohio, iS 13-1840, 86; Jones, ///., and the West 
31; Hist, of Grundy County, III., 149. 

* See map, pages 226, Turner's Rise of the New West. ] 



26o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

followed the line that Forbes had cut in the French 
and Indian War from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by- 
way of Lancaster and Bedford. By this time the 
road had been made a turnpike through a large por- 
tion of its course. From Baltimore the traveller 
followed a turnpike to Cumberland, on the Potomac, 
where began the old National Road across the 
mountains to Wheeling, on the Ohio, with branches 
leading to Pittsburg. This became one of the great 
arteries of western migration and commerce, con- 
necting, as it did at its eastern end, with the Shen- 
andoah Valley, and thus affording access to the 
Ohio for large areas of Virginia. Other routes lay 
through the passes of the Alleghanies, easily reached 
from the divide between the waters of North Caro- 
lina and of West Virginia. Saluda Gap, in north- 
western South Carolina, led the way to the great 
valley of eastern Tennessee. In Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky many routes passed to the Ohio in the re- 
gion of Cincinnati or Louisville, 

When the settler arrived at the waters of the 
Ohio, he either took a steamboat or placed his 
possessions on a flatboat, or ark, and floated down 
the river to his destination. From the upper waters 
of the Allegheny many emigrants took advantage of 
the lumber-rafts, which were constructed from the 
pine forests of southwestern New York, to float to 
the Ohio with themselves and their belongings. 
With the advent of the steamboat these older 
modes of navigation were, to a considerable extent, 



i83o] WESTERN COLONIZATION 261 

superseded. But navigation on the Great Lakes 
had not sufficiently advanced to afford opportunity 
for any considerable movement of settlement, by 
this route, beyond Lake Erie. 

In the course of the decade the cost of reaching 
the west varied greatly with the decrease in the 
transportation rates brought about by the competi- 
tion of the Erie Canal, the improvement of the turn- 
pikes, and the development of steamboat naviga- 
tion. The expense of the long overland journey 
from New England, prior to the opening of the Erie 
Canal, made it extremely difficult for those without 
any capital to reach the west. The stage rates on 
the Pennsylvania turnpike and the old National 
Road, prior to the opening of the Erie Canal, were 
about five or six dollars a hundred-weight from 
Philadelphia or Baltimore to the Ohio River; the 
individual was regarded as so much freight.* To 
most of the movers, who drove their own teams and 
camped by the wayside, however, the actual expense 
was simply that of providing food for themselves 
and their horses on the road. The cost of moving 
by land a few years later is illustrated by the case 
of a Maryland family, consisting of fifteen persons, 
of whom five were slaves. They travelled about 
twenty miles a day, with a four-horse wagon, three 
hundred miles, to Wheeling, at an expense of 
seventy-five dollars.^ The expense of travelling by 

' Evans, Pedestrious Tour, 145. 
18 ^ Niks' Register, XLVIIL, 242. 



262 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1823 

st;i^i::e and steamboat from Philadelphia to St. Louis 
at the close of the decade was about fifty-five dollars 
for one pers(Hi; or by steatnboat from New Orleans 
to St. Louis, thirty dollars, inckuling food and lodg- 
ing. For deck-passage, without fooil or lodging, the 
charge was only eight dollars.' In 1823 the cost of 
passage from Cincinnati to New Orleans by steam- 
boat was twenty-five dollars; from New Orleans to 
Cincinnati, fifty dollars.' In the early thirties one 
could go from New C)rloans to Pittsburg, as cabin 
passenger, for from Ihirly-five to forty-five dollars.' 

'///. Monthly .Ua.^.i:/)/.-. 11., 5,?. 
' Xilis' Rcfii.stcr, XX\'., os- 

' ICmij^nints' and frawllcrs' Guide tJirough the \' alley of tlis 
Mississippi, 341. 



CHAPTER XV 

SOCIAL AND KCOXOMIC IJEV^:LO]^MI•:\T OF 
THE WEST 

(1820-1830) 

ARRIVED at the nearest jxjint to his <^1estina- 
L tion on the Ohio, the emigrant either eut out 
a road to his new home or pushed up some tribu- 
tary of that river in a keel-boat. If he was one (A 
the poorer classes, he became a squatter on the 
public lanrls, trusting to find in the jjrofits of his 
farming the means of y)aying for his land. Not un- 
commonly, after clearing the land, he sold his im- 
provements to the actual purchaser, under the 
customary usage or by pre-emption laws.' With 
the money thus secured he would jjurchase new land 
in a remoter area, and thus establish himself as an 
independent land-owner. Under the credit system' 
which existed at the opening of the period, the settler 
purchased his land in quantities of not less than one 
hundred and sixty acres at two dollars per acre, by 
a cash payment of fifty cents per acre and the rest in 

■Hall, Statistics of the West, 180; Kingdom, America, s^j; 
Peck, New Guide for Emigrants to the West (1837), 11 9- 1.3 2. 
' Emerick, Credit and the Public Domain. 



264 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

instalments running over a period of four years ; but 
by the new law of 1820 the settler was permitted to 
buy as small a tract as eighty acres from the govern- 
ment at a minimum price of a dollar and a quarter 
per acre, without credit. The price of labor in the 
towns along the Ohio, coupled with the low cost of 
provisions, made it possible for even a poor day- 
laborer from the East to accumulate the necessary 
amount to make his land -purchase.* 

Having in this way settled down either as a 
squatter or as a land -owner, the pioneer proceeded 
to hew out a clearing in the midst of the forest.^ 
Commonly he had selected his lands with reference 
to the value of the soil, as indicated by the character 
of the hardwoods, but this meant that the labor of 
clearing was the more severe in good soil. Under 
the sturdy strokes of his axe the light of day was let 
into the little circle of cleared ground.^ With the 
aid of his neighbors, called together under the social 
attractions of a "raising," with its inevitable accom- 
paniment of whiskey and a "frolic," he erected his 
log-cabin. "America," wrote Birkbeck, "was bred 
in a cabin." ^ 

Having secured a foothold, the settler next pro- 
ceeded to "girdle" or "deaden" an additional forest 

* See, for example, Peck, New Guide for Emigrants to the West 
(1837), 107-134; Bradbury, Travels, 286. 

' Kingdom, America, lo, 54, 63; Flint, Letters, 206; McMaster, 
United States, V., 152-155; Howells, Life in Ohio, 115. 

' Hall, Statistics of the West, 98, loi, 145. 

^ Birkbeck, Notes on jfoiirney, 94. 



1830] WESTERN DEVELOPMENT 265 

area, preparatory to his farming operations. This 
consisted in cutting a ring through the bark around 
the lower portion of the trunk, to prevent the sap 
from rising. In a short time the withered branches 
were ready for burning, and in the midst of the 
stumps the first crop of corn and vegetables was 
planted. Often the settler did not even burn the 
girdled trees, but planted his crop under the dead 
foliage. 

In regions nearer to the east, as in western New 
York, it was sometimes possible to repay a large 
portion of the cost of clearing by the sale of pot 
and pearl ashes extracted from the logs, which were 
brought together into huge piles for burning.^ This 
was accomplished by a "log-rolling," under the 
united efforts of the neighbors, as in the case of the 
" raising. " More commonly in the west the logs were 
wasted by burning, except such as were split into 
rails, which, laid one above another, made the zig- 
zag "worm-fences" for the protection of the fields 
of the pioneer. 

When a clearing was sold to a later comer, fifty or 
sixty dollars, in addition to the government price of 
land, was commonly charged for forty acres, enclosed 
and partly cleared.^ It was estimated that the cost 
of a farm of three hundred and twenty acres at the 
edge of the prairie in Illinois, at this time, would be 
divided as follows : for one hundred and sixty acres 

' Life of ThurlawWeed (Autobiography), I., 11. 
* Kingdom, America, 10, 54. 



266 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S20 

of prairie, two hundred dollars; for fencing it into 
four forty-acre fields with rail-fences, one hundred 
and sixty dollars ; for breaking it up ^^'ith a plough, 
two dollars per acre, or three hundred and twenty 
dollars; eighty acres of timber land and eighty 
acres of pasture prairie, two hundred dollars. Thus, 
with cabins, stables, etc., it cost a little over a 
thousand dollars to secure an improved farm of three 
hundred and twenty acres.* But the mass of the 
early settlers were too poor to atlord such an outlay, 
and were either squatters within a little clearing, or 
owners of eighty acres, which they hoped to increase 
by subsequent purchase. Since they worked with 
the labor of their own hands and that of their sons, 
the cash outlay was practically limited to the 
original cost of the lands and articles of husbandry. 
The cost of an Indiana farm of eighty acres of 
land, with two horses, two or three cows, a few hogs 
and sheep, and farming utensils, was estimated at 
about four hundred dollars. 

The peculiar skill required of the axeman who 
entered the hardwood forests, together with readi- 
ness to undergo the privations of the Hfe, made the 
backwoodsman in a sense an expert engaged in a 
special calling.' Frequently he was the descendant 

»J. M. Peck, Guide for Emigrants (1S31), 1S3-1SS; cf. Birk- 
beck (London, 18 iS), Letters, 45. 46. 69-73; S. H. Collins, Emi- 
grant's Guide; Tanner (publisher), \'icu' of the Valley of tlie Miss. 
(1S34), 232: J. Woods, Two Years' Residence, 146, 172. 

'J. Hall, Statistics of tlte West, loi; cf. Chastellux, Travels in 
North America (London, 1787), L, 44. 



iSjo] WESTERN DEVELOPMENT 267 

of generations of pioneers, who, on successive fron- 
tiers, from the neighborhood of the Atlantic coast 
towards the interior, had cut and burned the forest, 
fought the Indians, and pushed forward the line of 
civilization. He bore the marks of the struggle in 
his face, made sallow by living in the shade of the 
forest, "shut from the common air," ^ and in a con- 
stitution often racked by malarial fever. Dirt and 
squalor were too frequently found in the squatter's 
cabin, and education and the refinements of life 
were denied to him. Often shiftless and indolent, 
in the intervals between his tasks of forest -felling 
he was fonder of hunting than of a settled agricult- 
ural life. With his rifle he eked out his sustenance, 
and the peltries furnished him a little ready cash. 
His few cattle grazed in the surrounding forest, and 
his hogs fed on its mast. 

The backwoodsman of this type represented the 
outer edge of the advance of civilization, W^here 
settlement was closer, co-operative activity possible, 
and little villages, with the mill and retail stores, 
existed, conditions of life were ameliorated, and a 
better type of pioneer was found, 2 Into such regions 
circuit -riders and wandering preachers carried the 
beginnings of church organization, and schools were 
started. But the frontiersmen proper constituted a 
moving class, ever ready to sell out their clearings in 

' Birkbeck, Notes on journey, 105-114. 

' Babcock, Forty Years of Pioneer Life ("Journals and Cor- 
respondence of J. M. Peck"), loi. 



268 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

order to press on to a new frontier, where game more 
abounded, soil was reported to be better, and where 
the forest furnished a welcome retreat from the un- 
congenial encroachments of civilization. If, how- 
ever, he was thrifty and forehanded, the backwoods- 
man remained on his clearing, improving his farm 
and sharing in the change from wilderness life. 

Behind the type of the backwoodsman came the 
type of the pioneer farmer. Equipped with a little 
capital, he often, as we have seen, purchased the 
clearing, and thus avoided some of the initial hard- 
ships of pioneer life. In the course of a few years, 
as saw -mills were erected, frame-houses took the 
place of the log-cabins ; the rough clearing, with its 
stumps, gave way to well -tilled fields; orchards 
were planted ; live-stock roamed over the enlarged 
clearing; and an agricultural surplus was ready for 
export. Soon the adventurous speculator offered 
corner lots in a new town-site, and the rude begin- 
nings of a city were seen. 

Thus western occupation advanced in a series of 
waves : ^ the Indian was sought by the fur-trader ; the 
fur-trader was followed by the frontiersman, whose 
live-stock exploited the natural grasses and the 
acorns of the forest ; next came the wave of primi- 
tive agriculture, followed by more intensive farming 

' J. M. Peck, New Guide to the West (Cincinnati, 1848), chap, 
iv.; T. Flint. Geography and Hist, of the Western States, 350 
et seq.; J. Flint, Letters from America, 206; cf. Turner, Signifi- 
cance of the Frontier in American History, in Am. Hist. Assoc, 
Report 1893, p. 214; McMaster, United States, V., 152-160. 



1830] WESTERN DEVELOPMENT 269 

and city life. All the stages of social development 
went on under the eye of the traveller as he passed 
from the frontier towards the east. Such were the 
forces which were steadily pushing their way into 
the American wilderness, as they had pushed for 
generations. 

While thus the frontier folk spread north of the 
Ohio and up the Missouri, a different movement was 
in progress in the Gulf region of the west. In the 
beginning precisely the same type of occupation was 
to be seen : the poorer classes of southern emigrants 
cut out their clearings along rivers that flowed to 
the Gulf and to the lower Mississippi, and, with the 
opening of this decade, went in increasing numbers 
into Texas, where enterprising Americans secured 
concessions from the Mexican government.^ 

Almost all of the most recently occupied area was 
but thinly settled. It represented the movement of 
the backwoodsman, with axe and rifle, advancing to 
the conquest of the forest. But closer to the old 
settlements a more highly developed agriculture was 
to be seen. Hodgson, in 1821, describes plantations 
in northern Alabama in lands ceded by the Indians 
in 1 81 8. Though settled less than two years, there 
were within a few miles five schools and four places 
of worship. One plantation had one hundred acres 



' Garrison, Texas, chaps, xiii., xiv.; Wooten (editor), Com- 
prehensive Hist, of Texas, I., chaps, viii., ix.; Texas State 
Hist. Assoc, Quarterly, VII., 29, 289; Btigbee, "Texas Fron- 
tier," in Southern Hist. Assoc, Publications, IV., 106. 



2;o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S20 

in cotton and one hundred and ten in com, although 
a year and a half before it was wilderness,* 

But while this population of log -cabin pioneers 
was entering the Gulf plains, caravans of slave-hold- 
ing planters were advancing from the seaboard to 
the occupation of the cotton-lands of the same region. 
As the free farmers of the interior had been replaced 
in the upland country of the south by the slave- 
holding planters, so now the frontiersmen of the 
southwest were pushed back from the more fertile 
lands into the pine hills and barrens. Not only was 
the pioneer unable to refuse the higher price which 
was offered him for his clearing, but, in the competi- 
tive bidding of the public land sales,' the wealthier 
planter secured the desirable soils. Social forces 
worked to the same end. When the pioneer invited 
his slave-holding neighbor to a "raising," it grated 
on his sense of the fitness of things to have the guest 
appear with gloves, directing the gang of slaves 
which he contributed to the function.^ Little by 
little, therefore, the old pioneer life tended to retreat 
to the less desirable lands, leaving the slave-holder 
in possession of the rich "buck-shot" soils that 
spread over central Alabama and Mississippi and 

* Hodgson, Letters from Xcrth Am., I., 269; see Riley (editor), 
" Autobiography of Lincecum," in Miss. Hist. Soc, Publications, 
VIII., 443, for the wanderings of a southern pioneer in the 
recently opened Indian lands of Georgia and the southwest in 
these years. 

' Nortiurn Ala. (published by Smith & De Land), 249; Brown, 
Hist, of Ala., 129-131; Bro\\-n, Lower South, 24-26. 

' Smedes./l Southern Planter, 67. 



1830I WESTERN DEVELOPMENT 271 

the fat alluvium that lined the eastern bank of 
the Mississippi. Even to-day the counties of dense 
negro population reveal the results of this move- 
ment of segregation. 

By the side of the picture of the advance of the 
pioneer farmer, bearing his household goods in his 
canvas-covered wagon to his new home across the 
Ohio, must therefore be placed the picture of the 
southern planter crossing through the forests of 
western Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, or pass- 
ing over the free state of Illinois to the Missouri 
Valley, in his family carriage, with servants, packs of 
hunting-dogs, and a train of slaves, their nightly 
camp-fires lighting up the wilderness where so re- 
cently the Indian hunter had held possession.^ 

But this new society had a characteristic western 
flavor. The old patriarchal type of slavery along 
the seaboard was modified by the western conditions 
in the midst of which the slave -holding interest was 
now lodged. Planters, as well as pioneer farmers, 
were exploiting the wilderness and building a new so- 
ciety under characteristic western influences. Rude 
strength, a certain coarseness of life, and aggressive- 
ness characterized this society, as it did the whole of 
the Mississippi Valley.^ Slavery furnished a new in- 

' Hodgson, Letters from North Am., I., 138; N He s' Register, 
XLIV., 222; Smedes, yl Southern Planter, 52-54; Flint, Geog- 
raphy and History of the Western States, II., 350, 379; Bernhard, 
Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Travels, II., chaps, xvi., xvii. 

' Baldwin, Flush Times in Ala.; cf. Gilmer, Sketclies of Geor- 
gia, etc. 



272 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

gredient for western forces to act upon. The system 
took on a more commercial tinge: the plantation 
had to be cleared and made profitable as a purely 
business enterprise. 

The slaves were purchased in considerable num- 
bers from the older states instead of being inherited 
in the family. Slave-dealers passed to the south- 
west, with their coffles of negroes brought from the 
outworn lands of the old south. It was estimated 
in 1832 that Virginia annually exported six thou- 
sand slaves for sale to other states.^ An EngHsh 
traveller reported in 1823 that every year from ten 
to fifteen thousand slaves were sold from the states 
of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and sent to 
the south. ^ At the same time, illicit importation 
of slaves through New Orleans reached an amount 
estimated at from ten to fifteen thousand a year.' 
It was not until the next decade that this incoming 
tide of slaves reached its height, but by 1830 it was 
clearly marked and was already transforming the 
southwest. Mississippi doubled the number of her 
slaves in the decade, and Alabama nearly trebled 
hers. In the same period the number of slaves of 
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina increased 
but slightly. 

As the discussion of the south has already made 
clear, the explanation of this transformation of the 

' Collins, Dotnestic Slave Trad*:, 50. 

* Blane, Excursion through U. S., 226; Hodgson, Letiers froyn 
North Am., I., 194. ^ Co]lms,Doi)iestic Slave Trade, 44. 



Jll 



1830] WESTERN DEVELOPMENT 273 

southwest into a region of slave -holding planters lies 
in the spread of cotton into the Gulf plains. In 181 1 
this region raised but five million pounds of cotton ; 
ten years later its product was sixty million pounds ; 
and in 1826 its fields were white with a crop of 
over one hundred and fifty million pounds. It soon 
outstripped the seaboard south. Alabama, which 
had practically no cotton crop in 181 1, and only 
ten million pounds in 1821, had in 1834 eighty-five 
million pounds,^ a larger crop than either South 
Carolina or Georgia. 

Soon after 1830 the differences between the 
northern and southern portions of the Mississippi 
Valley were still further accentuated, (i) From New 
York and New England came a tide of settlement, 
in the thirties, which followed the Erie Canal and 
the Great Lakes, and began to occupy the prairie 
lands which had been avoided by the southern axe- 
men. This region then became an extension of the 
greater New England already to be seen in New 
York. (2) The southern pioneers in the northwest 
formed a transitional zone between this northern area 
and the slave states south of the Ohio. (3) In the 
Gulf plains a greater south was in process of forma- 
tion, but by no means completely established. As 
yet it was a mixture of pioneer and planter, slave 
and free, profoundly affected by its western traits.' 

• See table of cotton crop, ante, p. 4^. 

* Curry, "A Settlement in East Ala.," in Am. Hist. Magazine, 
II., 203. 



2 74 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S20 

The different states of the south were steadily send- 
ing in bands of colonists. In Alabama, for example, 
the Georgians settled, as a rule, in the east; the 
Tennesseeans, moving from the great bend of the 
Tennessee River, were attracted to the northern and 
middle section; and the Virginians and Carolinians 
went to the west and southwest, following the bot- 
tom-lands near the rivers.* 

* Bre^wn, Hist, of Ala,, 129, 130; Nortltern Ala. (published by- 
Smith & De Land), pt. iv., 243 et seq. 



CHAPTER XVI 

WESTERN COMMERCE AND IDEALS 
(1820-1830) 

BY 1820 the west had developed the beginnings 
of many of the cities which have since ruled 
over the region, Buffalo and Detroit were hardly 
more than villages until the close of this period. 
They waited for the rise of steam navigation on 
the Great Lakes and for the opening of the prairies. 
Cleveland, also, was but a hamlet during most of the 
decade; but by 1830 the construction of the canal 
connecting the Cuyahoga v/ith the Scioto increased 
its prosperity, and its harbor began to profit by its 
natural advantages.* Chicago and Milwaukee were 
mere fur -trading stations in the Indian country. 
Pittsburg, at the head of the Ohio, was losing its old 
pre-eminence as the gateway to the west, but was 
finding recompense in the development of its manu- 
factures. By 1830 its population was about twelve 
thousand.^ Foundries, rolling-mills, nail -factories, 
steam-engine shops, and distilleries were busily at 

' Whittlesey, Early Hist, of Cleveland, 456; Kennedy, Hist. 
of Cleveland, chap. viii. 

' Thurston, Pittsburg and Allegheny in the Centennial Year, 61, 



276 SOCIAL AND ECONOiMIC FORCES [1S20 

work, and the city, dingy with the smoke of soft 
coal, was already dubbed the "young Manchester" 
or the " Birmingham " of America. By 1830 Wheel- 
ing had intercepted much of the overland trade and 
travel to the Ohio, profiting by the old National 
Road and the wagon trade from Baltimore.^ 

Cincinnati was rapidly rising to the position of 
the " Queen City of the West." Situated where the 
river reached with a great bend towards the interior 
of the northwest, in the rich farming country be- 
tween the two Miamis, and opposite the Licking 
River, it was the commercial centre of a vast and 
fertile region of Ohio and Kentucky';^ and by 1830, 
with a population of nearly twenty-five thousand 
souls, it was the largest city of the west, with the 
exception of New Orleans. The centre of steamboat- 
building, it also received extensive imports of goods 
from the east and exported the surplus crops of 
Ohio and adjacent parts of Kentucky. Its principal 
industry, however, was pork-packing, from which it 
won the name of "Porkopolis" ^ Louisville, at the 
falls of the Ohio, was an important place of trans- 
shipment, and the export centre for large quanti- 
ties of tobacco. There were considerable manufact- 
ures of rope and bagging, products of the Kentucky 
hemp-fields; and new cotton and woollen factories 



' Martin, Gazetteer of Va., 407. 
' Melish. 1 nforntatio}i io Emigranis, loS. 

' Drake and Mansfield, Citicinnati in 1826, p. 70; Winter in 
the West, I., 115. j 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 277 

were struggling for existence.* St. Louis occupied a 
unique position, as the entrepot of the important 
fur-trade of the upper Mississippi and the vast water 
system of the Missouri, as well as the outfitting-point 
for the Missouri settlements. It was the capital of 
the far west, and the commercial centre for Illinois. 
Its population at the close of the decade was about 
six thousand. 

Only a few villages lay along the Mississippi below 
St. Louis until the traveller reached New Orleans, 
the emporium of the whole Mississippi Valley. As 
yet the direct effect of the Erie Canal was chiefly 
limited to the state of New York. The great bulk of 
western exports passed down the tributaries of the 
Mississippi to this city, which was, therefore, the 
centre of foreign exports for the valley, as well as 
the port from which the coastwise trade in the prod- 
ucts of the whole interior departed. In 1830 its 
population was nearly fifty thousand. 

The rise of an agricultural surplus was transform- 
ing the west and preparing a new influence in the 
nation. It was this surplus and the demand for 
markets that developed the cities just mentioned. 
As they grew, the price of land in their neighborhood 
increased ; roads radiated into the surrounding coun- 
try; and farmers, whose crops had been almost 
worthless from the lack of transportation facilities, 
now found it possible to market their surplus at a 

• Durrett, Centenary of Louisville (Filson Club, Publications, 
No. 8), 50-101; Louisville Directory, 1832, p. 131. 
19 



278 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

small profit. While the west was thus learning the 
advantages of a home market, the extension of cot- 
ton and sugar cultivation in the south and south- 
west gave it a new and valuable market. More 
and more, the planters came to rely upon the north- 
west for their food supplies and for the mules and 
horses for their fields. Cotton became the engross- 
ing interest of the plantation belt, and, while the 
full effects of this differentiation of industry did not 
appear in the decade of this volume, the beginnings 
were already visible.^ In 1835, Pitkin^ reckoned 
the value of the domestic and foreign exports of the 
interior as far in excess of the whole exports of the 
United States in 1790. Within forty years the de- 
velopment of the interior had brought about the 
economic independence of the United States. 

During most of the decade the merchandise to 
supply the interior was brought laboriously across 
the mountains by the Pennsylvania turnpikes and 
the old National Road ; or, in the case of especially 
heavy freight, was carried along the Atlantic coast 
into the gulf and up the ]\Iississippi and Ohio by 
steamboats. The cost of transportation in the 
wagon trade from Philadelphia to Pittsburg and 
Baltimore to Wheeling placed a heavy tax upon the 
consumer,' In 181 7 the freight charge from Phila- 
delphia to Pittsburg was sometimes as high as seven 

* Callender, " Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises 
of the States," in Quarterly Journal of Econ., XVII., 3-54. 
^ Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), 534. 
^Niles' Register, XX., 180. 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 279 

to ten dollars a hundredweight; a few years later 
it became from four to six dollars; and in 1823 it 
had fallen to three dollars. It took a month to 
wagon merchandise from Baltimore to central Ohio. 
Transportation companies, running four-horse freight 
wagons, conducted a regular business on these turn- 
pikes between the eastern and western states. In 
1820 over three thousand wagons ran between Phila- 
delphia and Pittsburg, transporting merchandise 
valued at about eighteen million dollars annu- 
ally.^ 

The construction of the National Road reduced 
freight rates to nearly one-half what they were at 
the close of the War of 181 2 ; and the introduction of 
steam navigation from New Orleans up the Missis- 
sippi cut water-rates by that route to one-third of 
the former charge.^ Nevertheless, there was a crying 
need for internal improvements, and particularly for 
canals, to provide an outlet for the increasing prod- 
ucts of the west. ''Even in the country where I 
reside, not eighty miles from tidewater," said 
Tucker,^ of Virginia, in 1818, "it takes the farmer 
one bushel of wheat to pay the expense of carrying 
two to a seaport town." 

* Birkbeck, Journey from Va., 128; Ogden, Letters from the 
West, 8; Cobbett, Year's Residence, 337; Evans, Pedestrious 
Tour, 145; Philadelphia in 1824, 45; Searight, Old Pike, 107, 
112; Mills, Treatise on Inland Navigation (1820), 89, 90, 93, 
95-97; Journal of Polit. Econ., VIII., 36. 

2 Annals of Cong., i8 Cong., i Sess., I., 991 ; cf. Fearon, Sketches, 
260 ; Niles' Register, XXV. , 95 ; Cincinnati Christian Journal, July 
27, 1830. ^ Annals of Cong., 15 Cong., i Sess., I., 1126. 



28o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

The bulk of the crop, as compared with its value, 
practically prevented transportation by land farther 
than a hundred miles. ^ It is this that helps to ex- 
plain the attention which the interior first gave to 
making whiskey and raising live-stock; the former 
carried the crop in a small bulk with high value, 
while the live-stock could walk to a market. Until 
after the War of 181 2, the cattle of the Ohio Valley 
were driven to the seaboard, chiefly to Philadelphia 
or Baltimore. Travellers were astonished to see on 
the highway droves of four or five thousand hogs, 
going to an eastern market. It was estimated that 
over a hundred thousand hogs were driven east an- 
nually from Kentucky alone. Kentucky hog-drivers 
also passed into Tennessee, Virginia, and the Caro- 
linas with their droves.^ The swine lived on the nuts 
and acorns of the forest ; thus they were peculiarly 
suited to pioneer conditions. At first the cattle 
were taken to the plantations of the Potomac to 
fatten for Baltimore and Philadelphia, much in the 
same way that, in recent times, the cattle of the 
Great Plains are brought to the feeding-grounds in 
the corn belt of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa.' Tow- 
ards the close of the decade, however, the feeding- 
grounds shifted into Ohio, and the pork-packing 
industry, as we have seen, found its centre at Cin- 

* McMaster, United States, III., 464. 

^ Life of Ephraim Cutler, 89; Birkbeck, Journey, 24; Blane, 
Excursion through U. S. (London, 1824), 90; Atlantic Monthly, 
XXVI., 170. 

* Michaux, Travels, 191; Palmer, Journal of Travels, 36. 



281 



i83o] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 

cinnati/ the most important source of supply for 
the hams and bacon and salt pork which passed 
down the Mississippi to furnish a large share of the 
plantation food. From Kentucky and the rest of 
the Ohio Valley droves of mules and horses passed 
through the Tennessee Valley to the south to supply 
the plantations. Statistics at Cumberland Gap for 
1828 gave the value of Hve-stock passmg the turn- 
pike gate there at $1,167,000.^ Senator Hayne, of 
South Carolina, declared that in 1824 the south was 
supplied from the west, through Saluda Gap, with 
live-stock, horses, cattle, and hogs to the amount of 
over a million dollars a year.^ 

But the outlet from the west over the roads to 
the east and south was but a subordinate element 
in the internal commerce. Down the Mississippi 
floated a multitude of heavily freighted craft : lum- 
ber rafts from the Allegheny, the old-time arks, with 
cattle, flour, and bacon, hay-boats, keel-boats, and 
skiffs, all mingled with the steamboats which plied 
the western waters." Flatboatmen, raftsmen, and 
deck-hands constituted a turbulent and reckless 
population, living on the country through which 
they passed, fighting and drinking in true "half- 

1 Hall, Statistics of the West (1836), 145-147- 
^Emigrants' and Travellers' Guide to the West (1834), i94- 
' Speech in Senate in 1832, Register of Debates in Cong., VIII., 

pt. i., 80; cf. Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., i Sess., I., 1411- 

< Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years, loi-rio; E. S. 

Thomas, Reminiscences, I., 290-293; Hall, Statistics of the West 

(1836), 236; Howells, Life in Ohio, 85; Schultz, Travels, 129; 

Hulbert, Historic Highways, IX., chaps, iii., iv., v. 



282 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

horse, half -alligator " style. Prior to the steamboat, 
all of the commerce from New Orleans to the upper 
country was carried on in about twenty barges, 
averaging a hundred tons each, and making one trip 
a year. Although the steamboat did not drive out 
the other craft, it revolutionized the commerce of 
the river. Whereas it had taken the keel-boats 
thirty to forty days to descend from Louisville to 
New Orleans, and about ninety days to ascend the 
fifteen hundred miles of navigation by poling and 
warping up-stream, the steamboat had shortened 
the time, by 1822, to seven days down and sixteen 
days up.* As the steamboats ascended the various 
tributaries of the Mississippi to gather the products 
of the growing west, the pioneers came more and 
more to realize the importance of the invention. 
They resented the idea of the monopoly which Ful- 
ton and Livingston wished to enforce prior to the 
decision of Chief-Justice Marshall, in the case of 
Gibbons vs. Ogden — a decision of vital interest to 
the whole interior.^ 

They saw in the steamboat a symbol of their own 
development. A -v^Titer in the Western Monthly Re- 
view,^ unconsciously expressed the very spirit of the 

^Annals of Con^., 17 Cone^., 2 Sess., 407; McMaster, United 
Slates, v., 166; National Gazette, September 26, 1823 (list of 
steamboats, rates of passage, estimate of products') ; Blane, 
Excursion through the U. S., 119; Nilcs' Register, XXV.. 95. 

' Thomas, Travels through the Western Country, 62; Alexandria 
Herald, June 23, 181 7. 

'Timothy Flint's Western Monthly Review (May, 1827), I., 
25; William Bullock, Sketch of a Journey, 132. 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 283 

self-contented, hustling, materialistic west in these 
words : "An Atlantic cit, who talks of us under the name 
of backwoodsmen, would not believe, that such fairy 
structures of oriental gorgeousness and splendor, as 
the Washington, the Florida, the Walk in the Water, 
the Lady of the Lake, etc. etc., had ever existed in 
the imaginative brain of a romancer, much less, that 
they were actually in existence, rushing down the 
Mississippi, as on the wings of the wind, or plowing 
up between the forests, and walking against the 
mighty current 'as things of life,' bearing specula- 
tors, merchants, dandies, fine ladies, every thing 
real, and every thing affected, in the form of human- 
ity, with pianos, and stocks of novels, and cards, and 
dice, and flirting, and love-making, and drinking, 
and champaigne, and on the deck, perhaps, three 
hundred fellows, who have seen alligators, and 
neither fear whiskey, nor gun-powder. A steamboat, 
coming from New Orleans, brings to the remotest 
villages of our streams, and the very doors of the 
cabins, a little Paris, a section of Broadway, or a 
slice of Philadelphia, to ferment in the minds of our 
young people, the innate propensity for fashions and 
finery. Within a day's journey of us, three distinct 
canals are in respectable progress towards comple- 
tion. . . . Cincinnati will soon be the centre of the 
'celestial empire,' as the Chinese say; and instead 
of encountering the storms, the sea sickness, and 
dangers of a passage from the gulf of Mexico to the 
Atlantic, whenever the Erie canal shall be com- 



284 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

pleted, the opulent southern planters will take their 
famiHes, their dogs and parrots, through a world of 
forests, from New Orleans to New York, giving us 
a call by the way. When they are more acquainted 
with us, their voyage will often terminate here." 

By 1830 the produce which reached New Orleans 
from the Mississippi Valley amounted to about 
twenty-six million dollars.* In 1822 three million 
dollars' worth of goods was estimated to have passed 
the Falls of the Ohio on the way to market, repre- 
senting much of the surplus of the Ohio Valley. Of 
this, pork amounted to $1,000,000 in value; flour 
to $900,000; tobacco to $600,000; and whiskey to 
$500,000.^ The inventory of products reveals the 
Mississippi Valley as a vast colonial society, pro- 
ducing the raw materials of a simple and primitive 
agriculture. The beginnings of manufacture in the 
cities, however, promised to bring about a move- 
ment for industrial independence in the west. In 
spite of evidences of growing w^ealth, there was such 
a decline in agricultural prices that, for the farmer 
who did not live on the highways of commerce, it 
was almost unprofitable to raise wheat for the mar- 
ket. 

An Ohio pioneer of this time relates that at the 
beginning of the decade fifty cents a bushel was a 



* Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVII., 20; Pitkin, Statistical 
Vieiu (ed. of 1835), 534-536- 

^National Republican, March 7, 1823; cf. National Gazette, 
September 26, 1823; Blane, Excursion through the U.S., 119. 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 285 

great price for wheat at the river; and as two 
horses and a man were required for four days to 
make the journey of thirty-five miles to the Ohio, 
in good weather, with thirty-five or forty bushels 
of wheat, and a great deal longer if the roads were 
bad, it was not to be expected that the farmer could 
realize more than twenty-five cents in cash for it. 
But there was no sale for it in cash. The nominal 
price for it in trade was usually thirty cents. ^ When 
wheat brought twenty-five cents a bushel in Illinois 
in 1825, it sold at over eighty cents in Petersburg, 
Virginia, and flour was six dollars a barrel at 
Charleston, South Carolina.^ 

These are the economic conditions that assist in un- 
derstanding the political attitude of western leaders 
like Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson. The cry of 
the east for protection to infant industries was swelled 
by the little cities of the west, and the demand for 
a home market found its strongest support beyond 
the Alleghanies. Internal improvements and lower 
rates of transportation were essential to the pros- 
perity of the westerners. Largely a debtor class, 
in need of capital, credit, and an expansion of the 
currency, they resented attempts to restrain the 
reckless state banking which their optimism fostered. 

But the political ideals and actions of the west 



* Howells, Life in Ohio, 138; see M'CuUoch, Commercial 
Dictionary, I., 683, 684; Hazard, U.S. Commercial and Statistical 
Register, I., 251; O'Reilly, Sketches of Rochester, 363. 

2 Niles' Register, XXIX, 165. 



286 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

are explained by social quite as much as by econom- 
ic forces. It was certain that this society, where 
equality and individualism flourished, where asser- 
tive democracy was supreme, where impatience with 
the old order of things was a ruling passion, would 
demand control of the government, would resent 
the rule of the trained statesmen and official classes, 
and would fight nominations by congressional cau- 
cus and the continuance of presidential dynasties. 
Besides its susceptibility to change, the west had 
generated, from its Indian fighting, forest-felling, 
and expansion, a belligerency and a largeness of out- 
look with regard to the nation's territorial destiny. 
As the pioneer, widening the ring-wall of his clearing 
in the midst of the stumps and marshes of the wil- 
derness, had a vision of the lofty buildings and 
crowded streets of a future city, so the west as a 
whole developed ideals of the future of the common 
man, and of the grandeur and expansion of the 
nation. 

The west was too new a section to have devel- 
oped educational facilities to any large extent. 
The pioneers' poverty, as well as the traditions of 
the southern interior from which they so largely 
came, discouraged extensive expenditures for public 
schools.* In Kentucky and Tennessee the more 
prosperous planters had private tutors, often New 
England collegians, for their children. For example, 
Amos Kendall, later postmaster-general, was tutor 

* McMaster, United States, V., 370-372. 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 287 

in Henry Clay's family. So-called colleges were 
numerous, some of them fairly good. In 1830 a 
writer made a survey of higher education in the 
whole western country and reported twenty-eight 
institutions, with seven hundred and sixty-six grad- 
uates and fourteen hundred and thirty undergrad- 
uates. Less than forty thousand volumes were 
recorded in the college and "social" libraries of the 
entire Mississippi Valley.^ Very few students went 
from the west to eastern colleges; but the founda- 
tions of public education had been laid in the land 
grants for common schools and universities. For 
the present this fund was generally misappropriated 
and wasted, or worse. Nevertheless, the ideal of a 
democratic education was held up in the first consti- 
tution of Indiana, making it the duty of the legis- 
lature to provide for " a general system of education, 
ascending in a regular graduation from, township 
schools to a State university, wherein tuition shall 
be gratis, and equally open to all." ^ 

Literature did not flourish in the west, although 
the newspaper press ^ followed closely after the re- 
treating savage; many short-lived periodicals were 
founded,^ and writers like Timothy Flint and James 

^ Am. Quarterly Register (November, 1830), III., 127-131. 

' Poore, Charters and Constitutions, pt. i., 508 (art. ix., sec. 2 
of Constitution of Ind., 1816). 

' W. H. Perrin, Pioneer Press of Ky. (Filson Club Publications) . 

* Venable, Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, 
chap, iii.; W. B. Cairns, Development of Arnerican Literature 
from 18 J ^ to 1833, in University of Wis., Bulletin (Phil, and Lit. 
Series), I., 60-63. 



288 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

Hall were not devoid of literary ability. Lexington, 
in Kentucky, and Cincinnati made rival claims to be 
the "Athens of the West." In religion, the west 
was partial to those denominations which prevailed 
in the democratic portions of the older sections. 
Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians took the 
lead.^ 

The religious life of the west frequently expressed 
itself in the form of emotional gatherings, in the 
camp-meetings and the revivals, where the rude, un- 
lettered, but deeply religious backwoods preachers 
moved their large audiences with warnings of the 
wrath of God. Muscular Christianity was personi- 
fied in the circuit-rider, who, with his saddle-bags 
and Bible, threaded the dreary trails through the 
forest from settlement to settlement. From the 
responsiveness of the west to religious excitement, 
it was easy to perceive that here was a region capable 
of being swayed in large masses by enthusiasm. 
These traits of the camp-meeting were manifested 
later in political campaigns. 

Thus this society beyond the mountains, recruited 
from all the older states and bound together by the 
Mississippi, constituted a region swayed for the most 
part by common impulses. By the march of the 
westerners away from their native states to the 



^ Am. Quarterly Register, III., 135 (November, 1830); Scher- 
merhorn and Mills, View of U. S. West of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains (Hartford, 1814); Home Missionary, 1829, pp. 78, 79; 1830, 
p. 172; McMaster, United States, IV., 550-555. 



1830] WESTERN TRADE AND IDEALS 289 

public domain of the nation, and by their organiza- 
tion as territories of the United States, they lost that 
state particularism which distinguished many of the 
old commonwealths of the coast. The section was 
nationalistic and democratic to the core. The west 
admired the self-made man and was ready to follow 
its hero with the enthusiasm of a section more re- 
sponsive to personality than to the programmes of 
trained statesmen. It was a self-confident section, 
believing in its right to share in government, and 
troubled by no doubts of its capacity to rule. 



CHAPTER XVII j 

THE FAR WEST 1 

(1820-1830) ' 

IN the decade of which we write, more than two- 
thirds of the present area of the United States 
was Indian country — a vast wilderness stretching 
from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. East 
of the Mississippi, the pioneers had taken possession 
of the hardwoods of the Ohio, but over the prairies 
between them and the Great Lakes the wild flowers 
and grasses grew rank and undisturbed. To the 
north, across Michigan and Wisconsin, spread the 
sombre, white-pine wilderness, interlaced with hard- 
woods, which swept in ample zone along the Great 
Lakes, and, in turn, faded into the treeless expanse 
of the prairies beyond the Mississippi. To the 
south, in the Gulf plains, Florida was, for the most 
part, a wilderness ; and, as we have seen, great areas 
of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were still un- 
occupied by civilization. 

West of the Mississippi lay a huge new world — an 
ocean of grassy prairie that rolled far to the west, 
till it reached the zone where insufficient rainfall 
transformed it into the arid plains, which stretched 



iS2o] THE FAR WEST 291 

away to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. 
Over this vast waste, equal in area to France, Ger- 
many, Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Den- 
mark, and Belgium combined, a land where now 
wheat and corn fields and grazing herds produce 
much of the food supply for the larger part of 
America and for great areas of Europe, roamed the 
bison and the Indian hunter. Beyond this, the 
Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas, enclos- 
ing high plateaus, heaved up their vast bulk through 
nearly a thousand miles from east to west, concealing 
[ untouched treasures of silver and gold. The great 
I valleys of the Pacific coast in Oregon and California 
I held but a sparse population of Indian traders, a 
I few Spanish missions, and scattered herdsmen. 
I At the beginning of Monroe's presidency, the 
' Pacific coast was still in dispute between England, 
I Spain, Russia, and the United States. Holding to 
^ all of Texas, Spain also raised her flag over her 
colonists who spread from Mexico along the valley 
I of the Rio Grande to Santa Fe, and she claimed the 
I great unoccupied wilderness of mountain and desert 
I comprising the larger portion of Colorado, Arizona, 
] Utah, and Nevada, as well as California. In the 
I decade of 1 820-1 830, fur-traders threaded the dark 
1 and forbidding defiles of the mountains, unfolded 
1 the secrets of the Great Basin, and found their way 
across the Rockies to California and Oregon; the 
I government undertook diplomatic negotiations to 
I safeguard American rights on the Pacific, and ex- 



292 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

tended a line of forts well into the Indian coun- 
try ; while far-seeing statesmen on the floor of Con- 
gress challenged the nation to fulfil its destiny by 
planting its settlements boldly beyond the Rocky 
Mountains on the shores of the Pacific. It was a 
call to the lodgment of American power on that 
ocean, the mastery of which is to determine the 
future relations of Asiatic and European civiliza- 
tions.' 

A survey of the characteristics of the life of the 
far west shows that, over Wisconsin and the larger 
part of Michigan, the Indian trade was still carried 
on by methods introduced by the French.^ Astor's 
American Fur Company practically controlled the 
trade of Wisconsin and Michigan. It shipped its 
guns and ammunition, blankets, gewgaws, and 
whiskey from Mackinac to some one of the principal 
posts, where they were placed in the light birch 
canoes, manned by French boatmen, and sent 
throughout the forests to the minor trading-posts. 
Practically all of the Indian villages of the tribu- 
taries of the Great Lakes and of the upper Missis- 
sippi were regularly visited by the trader. The 
trading-posts became the nuclei of later settlements ; 
the traders' trails grew into the early roads, and 
their portages marked out the location for canals. 

• Cf. Babcock, Am. Nationality {Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. 

XV. 

' Masson, Le Bourgeois de Nordwest; Parkman, Old R^ 
gime. ) 

I 



1830] THE FAR WEST 293 

Little by little the fur-trade was undermining the 
Indian society and paving the way for the entrance 
of civilization.* 

In the War of 181 2, all along the frontier of 
Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, as well as in the 
southwest, the settlers had drawn back into forts, 
much as in the earl}'' days of the occupation of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, and the traders and the Ind- 
ians had been entirely under the influence of Great 
Britain. In the negotiations at Ghent, that power, 
having captured the American forts at Mackinac, 
Prairie du Chien, and Chicago, tried to incorporate 
in the treaty a provision for a neutral belt, or buffer 
state, of Indian territory in the northwest, to 
separate Canada from the United States.^ Taught 
by this experience, the United States, at the close of 
the war, passed laws excluding aliens from conduct- 
ing the Indian trade, and erected forts at Green 
Bay, Prairie du Chien, Chicago, and Fort Snelling. 
By order of Secretary of War Calhoun, Governor 
Cass, of Michigan, made an expedition in 1820 
along the south shore of Lake Superior into Minne- 
sota, to compel the removal of English flags and to 
replace British by American influence.' At the 
samertime, an expedition under Major Long visited 

^ Turner, Character and Influence of tltc Fur Trade in Wis., in 
Wis. Hist. Soc, Transactions, 1889. 

* Cf. Babcock, Am. Nationality {Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. x. 

'Schoolcraft, Hist, of Indian Tribes, VI., 422; ibid.. Narra- 
tive Journal; " Doty's Journal," in Wis. Hist. Soc, Collections, 
XIII., 163. 
20 



294 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

the upper waters of the Minnesota River on a similar 
errand/ An agent who was sent by the govern- 
ment to investigate the Indian conditions of this 
region in 1820, recommended that the country now 
included in Wisconsin, northern Michigan, and part 
of Minnesota should be an Indian reservation, 
from which white settlements should be excluded, 
with the idea that ultimately the Indian pop- 
ulation should be organized as a state of the 
Union. ^ 

The Creeks and Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chicka- 
saws of the Gulf region were more advanced tow- 
ards civilization than the Indians of the northwest. 
While the latter lived chiefly by hunting and trap- 
ping, the southwestern Indians had developed a 
considerable agriculture and a sedentary life. For 
that very reason, however, they were the more 
obnoxious to the pioneers who pressed upon their 
territory from all sides ; and, as we shall see, strenu- 
ous efforts were made to remove them beyond the 
Mississippi. 

Throughout the decade the problem of the future 
of the Indians east of this river was a pressing one, 
and the secretaries of war, to whose department the 
management of the tribes belonged, made many 
plans and recommendations for their civilization, 
improvement, and assimilation. But the advance 
of the frontier broke down the efforts to preserve 

* Keating, Long's Expedition. 

' Morse, Report on Indian Affairs in 1820. 



1830] THE FAR WEST 295 

and incorporate these primitive people in the dom- 
inant American society/ 

Across the Mississippi, settlement of the whites 
had, in the course of this decade, pushed up the 
Missouri well towards the western boundary of the 
state, and, as the map of the settlement shows, had 
made advances towards the interior in parts of 
Arkansas as well. But these were only narrow 
wedges of civilization thrust into the Indian coun- 
try, the field of operations of the fur-traders. Suc- 
cessors to the French traders who had followed the 
rivers and lakes of Canada far towards the interior, 
the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Northwest 
Company under British charters had carried their 
operations from the Great Lakes to the Pacific long 
before Americans entered the west . As early as 1 7 93 , 
Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific from the 
Great Lakes by way of Canada.^ The year before, 
an English ship under Vancouver explored the north- 
western coast in the hope of finding a passage by 
sea to the north and east. He missed the mouth 
of the Columbia, which in the following month was 
entered by an American, Captain Gray, who ascend- 
ed the river twenty miles. The expedition of Lewis 
and Clark, 1 804-1 806, made the first crossing of 
the continent from tenitory of the United States, 



^ Am. State Paps., Indian, II., 275, 542, et passim; J. Q. Adams, 
Memoirs, Yll., 89, 90, 92; Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 
234, et seq. 

^ Mackenzie, Travels. 



296 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [181 2 

and strengthened the claims of that country to the 
region of the Columbia.' 

■ John Jacob Astor's attempt to plant a trading- 
post at Astoria ' had been defeated by the treachery 
of his men, who, at the opening of the War of 181 2, 
turned the post over to the British Northwest fur- 
traders. The two great branches of the Columbia, 
the one reaching up into Canada, and the other 
pushing far into the Rocky Mountains, on the Amer- 
ican side, constituted lines of advance for the rival 
forces of England and the United States in the 
struggle for the Oregon country. The British 
traders rapidly made themselves masters of the 
region.^ By 1825 the Hudson's Bay Company 
monopolized the English fur-trade and was estab- 
lished at Fort George (as Astoria was rechristened), 
Fort Walla -Walla, and Fort Vancouver, near the 
mouth of the Willamette. Here, for twenty-two 
years, its agent, Dr. John McLoughlin, one of the 
many Scotchmen who have built up England's 
dominion in the new countries of the globe, ruled 
like a benevolent monarch over the realms of the 
British traders.'* From these Oregon posts as cen- 
tres they passed as far south as the region of Great 
Salt Lake, in what was then Mexican territory. 

While the British traders occupied the northwest 
coast the Spaniards held California. Although they 

* Cf. Channing, Jeffersonian System (.4m. Nation, XII.) , chap, 
vii. ' Irving, Astoria. * Coues (editor) , Greater Northwest. 

• Schafer, Pacific Northwest, chap. viii. 



i8i2] THE FAR WEST 297. 

established the settlement of San Francisco in the 
year of the declaration of American independence, 
settlement grew but slowly. The presidios, the mis- 
sions, with their Indian neophytes, and the cattle 
ranches feebly occupied this imperial domain. Yan- 
kee trading-ships gathered hides and tallow at San 
Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco ; Yankee whalers, 
seal -hunters, and fur-traders sought the northwest 
coast and passed on to China to bring back to Boston 
and Salem the products of the far east.* But Spain's 
possession was not secure. The genius for expan- 
sion which had already brought the Russians to 
Alaska drew them down the coast even to California, 
and in 181 2 they established Fort Ross at Bodega 
Bay, a few miles below the mouth of Russian River, 
north of San Francisco. This settlement, as well as 
the lesser one in the Farallone Islands, endured for 
nearly a generation, a menace to Spain's ascendency 
in California in the chaotic period when her colonies 
were in revolt.^ 

In the mean time, from St. Louis as a centre, 
American fur-traders, the advance-guard of settle- 
ment, were penetrating into the heart of the vast 
wilderness between the Mississippi and the Pacific 
coast.' This was a more absolute Indian domain 
than was the region between the Alleghanies and 
the Mississippi at the end of the seventeenth cen- 

* R. H. Dana, Tivo Years before tJte Mast. 
»H. H. Bancroft, Hist, of California. II., 628; Hittel, Hist, of 
California. ^ Chittenden, Am. Fur Trade of the Far West. 



29S SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1823 

tury — an empire of mountains and prairies, where 
the men of the Stone Age watched with alarm the 
first crawHng waves of that tide of civiHzation that 
was to sweep them away. The savage population 
of the far west has already been described in an 
earlier volume of this series.^ 

With the development of the Rocky ^fountain 
Fur Company, the most flourishing period of the St. 
Louis trade in the far west began. The founder of 
this company was William H. Ashley, a Virginian. 
Between the autumn of 1823 and the spring of the 
next year, one of his agents erected a post at the 
mouth of the Bighorn, and sent out his trappers 
through the Green River valley, possibly even to 
Great Salt Lake. A detachment of this party found 
the gateway of the Rock}^ Mountains, through the 
famous South Pass by way of the Sweetwater branch 
of the north fork of the Platte. This pass com- 
manded the routes to the great interior basin and 
to the Pacific Ocean. What Cumberland Gap was 
in the advance of settlement across the AUegha- 
nies, South Pass was in the movement across 
the Rocky Mountains ; through it passed the 
later Oregon and California trails to the Pacific 
coast. 

On the lower ^Missouri and at various places in the 



' Fanrand, Basis of Am. Hist. (Am. Nation, II.), chaps, viii., 
ix.,xii.; see also chap. iv. On the location of the Indians, see 
map, p. 309; Chittenden, .4m. Fur Trade, II., pt. v., chaps, viii., 
ix., X.; Bureau of Ethnology, Seventh Annual Report. 



1823] THE FAR WEST 299 

interior,* stockaded trading-posts were erected by 
the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and its rival, the 
American Fur Company, In these posts the old 
fur-trade life of the past went on, with French half- 
breed packmen and boatmen, commanded by the 
bourgeois. But in some of the best trading-grounds 
the savages declined to permit the erection of posts, 
and so, under Ashley's leadership, bands of mounted 
American trappers, chiefly Kentuckians, Tennessee- 
ans, and Missourians, were sent out to hunt and 
trade in the rich beaver valleys of the mountains. 
The Rocky Mountain trappers were the successors 
to the Alleghany frontiersmen, carrying on in this 
new region, where nature wrought on a vaster plan, 
the old trapping life which their ancestors had car- 
ried on through Cumberland Gap in the " dark and 
bloody ground ' ' of Kentucky. 

Yearly, in June and July, a rendezvous was held 
in the mountains, to which the brigades of trappers 
returned with the products of their hunt, to receive 
the supplies for the coming year. Here, also, came 
Indian tribes to trade, and bands of free trappers, 
lone wanderers in the mountains, to sell their furs 
and secure supplies.^ The rendezvous was usually 
some verdure-clad valley or park set in the midst 
of snow-capped mountains, a paradise of game. 
Such places were Jackson's Hole, at the foot of the 
lofty Tetons, Pierre's Hole, not far away, and 

1 Sec map, p. 1 14, Turner's Rise of the Neiv West; Chittenden, Am. 
Fur Trade, I., 44-51 (describes posts, etc.). 
- Irving, Bonneville, chap. i. 



300 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1827 

Ogden's Hole, near the present site of Ogden, in 
Utah. Great Salt Lake was probably first visited 
by Bridger in 1824, and the next year a party of 
Hudson Bay trappers were expelled by Americans 
who took possession of their furs. In 1826, Ashley 
carried a six-pounder cannon on wheels to Utah 
Lake for the defence of his post. 

A new advance of the American fur-trader was 
made when Jedediah Smith succeeded Ashley as the 
leader in Rocky Mountain trade and exploration. 
In 1826 he left the Salt Lake rendezvous with a 
party of trappers to learn the secrets of the lands 
between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific 
Ocean. Proceeding to the southwest along the 
Virgin River, Smith descended it to the Colorado, 
and crossed the desert to San Diego, California. 
Here, by the intercession of a Yankee captain then 
in that port, he obtained supplies from the Span- 
iards, and turned to the northwest, travelling parallel 
to the coast for some three hundred miles to winter- 
ing grounds on the headwaters of the San Joaquin 
and the Merced. Leaving most of his party behind, 
he crossed the mountains, by a route south of the 
Humboldt, and returned to Great Salt Lake. 

Almost immediately he set out again for Cali- 
fornia by the previous route, and in 1827 reached 
the San Jose mission. Here he was arrested by the 
Spanish authorities and sent under guard to Monte- 
rey, where another Yankee skipper secured his re- 
lease. Wintering once more in California, this time 



1831] THE FAR WEST 301 

on the American Fork, he reached the coast in the 
spring of 1828, and followed the Umpquah River 
towards the Oregon country. While he was absent, 
his camp was attacked by the Indians and fifteen 
of his men killed. Absolutely alone, Smith worked 
his way through the forest to Fort Vancouver, 
where he enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. McLoughlin 
through the winter. In the following spring he 
ascended the Columbia to the Hudson Bay posts 
among the Flat heads, and made his way in the 
summer of 1829 to the rendezvous of his company 
at the Tetons. In three years this daring trader, 
braving the horrors of the desert and passing un- 
scathed from Indian attacks which carried off most 
of his companions, opened to knowledge much of 
the vast country between Great Salt Lake and 
the Pacific' In 1831, while on the Santa Fe trail. 
Smith and his companions lost their way. Perish- 
ing with thirst, he finally reached the Cimaron, 
where, as he was digging for water in its sandy bed, 
he was shot by an Indian. 

Thus the active men of the Rocky Mountain Fur 
Company, in the decade between 1820 and 1830, 
revealed the sources of the Platte, the Green, the 
Yellowstone, and the Snake rivers, and the char- 
acteristics of the Great Salt Lake region; they 
pioneered the way to South Pass, descended Green 
River by boat, carried cannon into the interior 
basin; showed the practicability of a wagon route 

' H. H. Bancroft, California, III., 152-160, citing the sources. 



302 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1832 

through the Rockies, reached Cahfornia from Salt 
Lake, crossed the Sierras and the deserts of Utah and 
Nevada, and became intimately acquainted with the 
activity of the British traders of the northwest coast. ^ 
Already an interest in Oregon and the Rocky 
Mountain region was arising on the eastern sea- 
board. In 1832, Captain Bonneville, an officer in 
the United States army, on leave of absence, 
passed with a wagon-train into the Rocky Moun- 
tains, where for nearly three years he trapped and 
traded and explored.^ Walker, one of his men, in 
1833, reached California by the Humboldt River (a 
route afterwards followed by the emigrants to Cali- 
fornia), and made known much new country. A 
New England enthusiast, Hall Kelley, had for some 
years been lecturing on the riches of the Oregon 
country and the need of planting an agricultural 
colony there. It was natural that Boston should 
be interested in the Oregon country, which was 
visited by so many vessels from that port. In 
1820, New England missionaries settled in the 
Hawaiian Islands, closely connected by trade with 
the coast. In 1832, Nathaniel Wyeth, of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, led a party of New - Eng- 
landers west, with the plan of establishing a trading 
and fishing post on the waters of the Columbia.^ 

' Chittenden, Am. Fur Trade, I., 306. 

2 Irving, Bonneville. 

^Chittenden, Am. Fur Trade, I., 435; Wyeth's "Journals" 
are published by the Oregon Hist. Soc.; of. Irving, Bonneville, 
chap. vi. 



I S3 4] THE FAR WEST 303 

With Wyeth, on a second expedition in 1834, went 
the Reverend Jason Lee and four Methodist mission- 
aries. Two years later came Dr. Marcus Whitman 
and another company of missionaries with their 
wives; they brought a wagon through South Pass 
and over the mountains to the Snake River, and 
began an agricultural colony. Thus the old story 
of the sequence of fur-trader, missionary, and set- 
tler was repeated. The possession of Oregon by 
the British fur-trader was challenged by the Ameri- 
can farmer. 

Contemporaneously with the development of the 
fur-trade in the Rocky Mountains, a trade was 
opened between St. Louis and the old Spanish set- 
tlements at Santa Fe. Although even in the days 
of Washington adventurous frontiersmen like George 
Rogers Clark had set their eyes on Santa Fe and 
the silver-mines of the southwest, it was not until 
the Mexican revolution (182 1), when Spain's con- 
trol was weakened throughout her whole domain, 
that systematic trade was possible. In 1822, Beck- 
nell, of Missouri, took a wagon-train to Santa Fe, 
to trade for horses and mules and to trap en route. 
Year after year thereafter, caravans of Missouri 
traders found their way across the desert, by the 
Santa F6 trail, with cottons and other dry-goods 
furnished from St. Louis, and brought back horses, 
mules, furs, and silver. The trade averaged about 
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year, and 
was an important source of supply of specie for the 



304 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1820 

west ; and it stimulated the interest of St. Louis in 
the Mexican provinces. The mode of handling the 
wagon - trains that passed between Missouri and 
Santa F6 furnished the model for the caravans that 
later were to cross the plains in the rush to the gold- 
fields of California.* 

By 1833 the important western routes were 
clearly made known.' The Oregon trail, the Santa 
F6 trail, the Spanish trail, and the Gila route' had 
been followed by frontiersmen into the promised 
land of the Pacific coast and the southwest. In 
the course of ten years, not only had the principal 
secrets of the topography of the Rocky Mountains, 
the Great Basin, the passes across the Sierra Neva- 
das been revealed, but also the characteristics of 
the Spanish-American settlements of California and 
the Rio Grande region. Already pioneers sought 
Texas, and American colonization was prepar- 
ing for another and greater conquest of the wilder- 
ness. 

The interest of the United States government in 
the far west in this period was shown in explora- 
tion and diplomacy. Calhoun projected an exten- 
sion of the forts of the United States well up the 
Missouri into the Indian country, partly as protec- 
tion to the traders and partly as a defence against 

* Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies; Chittenden, Am. Fur Trade, 
II., chap. xxix. 

' Semple, Am. Hist, and its Geographic Conditions, chap. x. 

* Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie; H. H. Bancroft, Hist. 
of California, III., 163. 



i 



* 



1833] THE FAR WEST 305 

English aggressions. Two Yellowstone expeditions ' 
were designed to promote these ends. The first of 
these, 1819-1820, was a joint military and scientific 
undertaking ; but the military expedition, attempt- 
ing to ascend the Missouri in steamboats, got no 
farther than Council Bluffs. Mismanagement, ex- 
travagance, and scandal attended the undertaking, 
and the enterprise was made an occasion for a 
political onslaught on Calhoun's management of the 
war department. 

The scientific expedition, under Major Long, of 
the United States Engineering Corps, ascended the 
Missouri in the Western Engineer, the first steam- 
boat which navigated those waters above St. Louis 
— a stern-wheeler, with serpent-mouthed figure-head, 
through which the steam escaped, bringing terror 
to the savages along the banks. The expedition 
advanced far up the South Platte, discovered Long's 
Peak, and camped near the site of Denver. Thence 
the party passed to La Junta, Colorado, whence it 
broke into two divisions, one of which descended 
the Arkansas; the other reached the Canadian 
River (which it mistook for the Red) and descended 
to its jimction with the Arkansas. The effort to 
push the military power of the government to the 
mouth of the Yellowstone failed, and the net result, 
on the military side, was a temporary post near the 
present site of Omaha. 

* Chittenden , Am. Fur Trade, II., 562; Long's Expedition 
(Early Western Travels, XIV.-XVII). 



3o6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1819 

The most important effect of the expedition was 
to give currency to Long's description of the coun- 
try through which he passed as the "Great Ameri- 
can Desert," unfit for cultivation and uninhabi- 
table by agricultural settlers. The whole of the 
region between the Missouri River and the Rocky 
]\Iountains seemed to him adapted as a range for 
buffalo, "calculated to serve as a barrier to pre- 
vent too great an extension of our population west- 
ward," and to secure us against the incursions of 
enemies in that quarter,* A second expedition, in 
1825, under General Atkinson and Major O'Fal- 
lon, reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, hav- 
ing made treaties with various Indian tribes on the 
way. 

In the mean time, Congress and the president were 
busy with the question of Oregon. By the con- 
vention of 1 81 8, with Great Britain, the northern 
boundary of the United States was carried from the 
Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, along 
the forty-ninth parallel. Beyond the mountains, 
the Oregon country was left open, for a period of 
ten years, to joint occupation of both powers, with- 
out prejudice to the claims of either. Having thus 
postponed the Oregon question, the secretary of 
state, John Quincy Adams, turned to his Spanish re- 
lations. Obliged by Monroe to relinquish our claim 
to Texas in the treaty of 181 9, by which we obtained 
Florida, he insisted on so drawing our boundary -line 

* Long's Expedition {Early Western Travels, XVII.), 147, 148. 



i822] THE FAR WEST 307 

in the southwest as to acquire Spain's title to the 
Pacific north of the forty-second parallel, and to the 
lands that lay north and east of the irregular line 
from the intersection of this parallel with the Rocky 
Mountains to the Sabine. Adams was proud of se- 
curing this line to the Pacific Ocean, for it was the 
first recognition by an outside power of otir rights 
in the Oregon country.* 

Although Russia put forv/ard large and exclusive 
claims north of the fifty-first parallel, which we chal- 
lenged, the contest for Oregon lay between England 
and the United States. At the close of 1820, Floyd, 
of Virginia, moved in the House of Representatives 
to inquire into the feasibility of the occupation of 
the Columbia River ; and early the next year ^ a 
committee report was brought in, discussing the 
American rights. Floyd's bill provided for the mili- 
tary occupation of the Columbia River, donation of 
lands to actual settlers, and control of the Indians. 
No vote was reached, however, and it was not until 
the close of 1822 that the matter secured the atten- 
tion of Congress. 

Whatever may have been his motives, Floyd 
stated with vividness the significance of western 
advance in relation to the Pacific coast. He showed 
that, while in 1755, nearly a hundred and fifty years 

' Treaties and Conventions (ed. of 1889), 416, 1017; Babcock, 
Am. Nationality {Am. Nation, XIII.), chap, xvi.; J. Q. Adams, 
Memoirs, IV., 275. 

^Annals of Cong., 16 Cong., 2 Sess., 945; J. Q. Adams, Me- 
moirs, v., 238, 243-260. 



3o8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1822 

after the foundation of Jamestown, the population 
of Virginia had spread but three hundred miles into 
the interior of the country, during the last forty- 
three years population had spread westward more 
than a thousand miles. He recalled the days when 
more than a month was required to furnish Kentucky 
with eastern goods, by way of Pittsburg, and when 
it required a voyage of over a month to pass from 
Louisville to New Orleans and nearly three months 
for the upward voyage. This had now been short- 
ened by steamboat to seven days down and sixteen 
days up. From these considerations and the time 
from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia by 
steamboat and wagon, he argued that Oregon was 
no more distant from St. Louis in 1822 than St. 
Louis was twenty years before from Philadelphia. 
The fur-trade, the whale and seal fisheries, the 
trade with China, and the opportunity for agri- 
cultural occupation afforded by Oregon were aU set 
forth.* 

Against the proposal, his opponents argued in- 
expediency rather than our treaties with Great 
Britain. Tracy, of New York, doubted the value 
of the Oregon country, and, influenced perhaps 
by Long's report, declared that "nature has fixed 
limits for our nation; she has kindly introduced 
as our Western barrier, mountains almost inacces- 
sible, whose base she has skirted with irreclaimable 
deserts of sand."' In a later debate, Smyth, of 

* Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., 3 Sess., 397. ' Ibid., 590. 



1822] THE FAR WEST 309 

Virginia, amplified this idea by a proposal to limit 
the boundaries of the United States, so that it 
should include but one or two tiers of states be- 
yond the Mississippi. He would remove the Ind- 
ians beyond this limit, and, if American settlements 
should cross it, they might be in alliance with, or 
under the protection of, the United States, but out- 
side of its bounds.* 

Baylies, of Massachusetts, declared that there were 
living witnesses "who have seen a population of 
scarcely six hundred thousand swelled into ten mill- 
ions; a population which, in their youth, extended 
scarcely an hundred miles from the ocean, spreading 
beyond the mountains of the West, and sweeping 
down those mighty waters which open into regions 
of such matchless fertility and beauty." "Some 
now within these walls may, before they die, witness 
scenes more wonderful than these ; and in aftertimes 
may cherish delightful recollections of this day, 
when America, almost shrinking from the * shadows 
of coming events,' first placed her feet upon un- 
trodden ground, scarcely daring to anticipate the 
grandeur which awaited her." Tucker, of Virginia, 
agreed that settlement "marches on, with the in- 
creasing rapidity of a fire, and nothing will stop it 
until it reaches the shores of the Pacific," which he 
estimated would be by 1872. But he was loath 
to see it accelerated, believing that the people 
on the east and the west side of the Rocky Moun- 

^ Register of Debates, 18 Cong., 2 Sess., I., 37. 



3IO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1822 

tains would have a permanent separation of in- 
terests.^ 

Nor were even western men sanguine that the 
nation could retain the Pacific coast as an integi^al 
part of its vast empire. Senator Benton, of Missouri, 
was the congressional champion of the far west. 
Bom in interior North Carolina, he had followed 
the frontier to Tennessee, and then, after killing his 
man in a duel and exchanging pistol-shots in a free 
fight with Jackson, he removed to the new frontier 
at St. Louis. Pedantic and ponderous, deeply read 
in curious historical lore, in many ways he was not 
characteristic of the far west, but in the coarse 
vigor with which he bore down opposition by abuse, 
and in the far horizon line of the policies he ad- 
vocated, he thoroughly represented its traits. 

Familiar as he was with frontier needs and aspira- 
tions, he urged the United States to block England's 
control of the northwest, and to assert title to the 
Oregon territory, with the idea of ultimately found- 
ing a new and independent American nation there. 
It is ti"ue that he admitted that along the ridge of 
the Rocky Mountains "the western limit of this 
republic should be drawn, and the statue of the 
fabled god Terminus should be raised upon its high- 
est peak, never to be thrown down." - 

Nevertheless, in his utterances the ideal of expan- 
sion was not to be mistaken. He spoke bravely in 

' Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., 2 Sess., 422. 
^Register of Debates, L, 712. 



1823] THE FAR WEST 311 

favor of the protection and extension of the fur- 
trade,' pointing out that inasmuch as England occu- 
pied Oregon, she would, under the law of nations, 
have the right of possession until the question of 
sovereignty were decided. He warned his country- 
men, in 1823, that Great Britain would monopolize 
the Pacific Ocean, and by obtaining control of the 
Rocky Mountain fur-trade would be able to launch 
the Indians of the north and west against the fron- 
tiers of Missouri and Arkansas, Illinois and Michi- 
gan, upon the first renewal of hostilities between the 
United States of America and the king of Great 
Britain.^ 

Benton believed that, within a century, a popula- 
tion greater than that of the United States of 1820 
would exist on the west side of the Rocky Moun- 
tains; and he saw in the occupation of the north- 
west coast the means of promoting a trade between 
the valley of the Mississippi, the Pacific Ocean, and 
Asia. Upon the people of eastern Asia, he thought, 
the establishment of a civilized power on the oppo- 
site coast of America would produce great benefits. 
" Science, liberal principles in government, and the 
true religion, might cast their lights across the inter- 
vening sea. The valley of the Columbia might be- 
come the granary of China and Japan, and an outlet 
to their imprisoned and exuberant population. . . . 
Russia and the legitimates menace Turkey, Persia, 

' Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., i Sess., I., 416; cf. ibid., 18 Cong., 
I Sess., I., 456. ^ Ibid., 17 Cong., 2 Sess., 246-251. 



312 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1823 

China, and Japan ; they menace them for their riches 
and dominions; the same Powers menace the two 
Americas for the popular forms of their Govern- 
ments. To my mind the proposition is clear, that 
Eastern Asia and the two Americas, as they have 
become neighbors, should become friends."* 

With true western passion he denounced the 
relinquishment of Texas by the treaty of 1819. 
"The magnificent valley of the Mississippi is ours," 
he proclaimed, "with all its fountains, springs, and 
floods and woe to the statesman who shall under- 
take to surrender one drop of its water, one inch of 
its soil, to any foreign power." He was ready for 
a war with Spain, believing that it would give the 
United States the Floridas and Cuba, "the geo- 
graphical appurtenance of the valley of the Missis- 
sippi"; that it would free the New from the Old 
World; and that it would create a cordon of repub- 
lics across the two continents of North and South 
America. He pointed to the west as the route to 
the east — the long-sought way to India; and, in 
imagination, he outlined the states to be laid off 
" from the center of the valley of the Mississippi to 
the foot of the shining mountains." "It is time," 
he wrote, " that Western men had some share in the 
destinies of this republic." ^ 

* Register of Debates, I., 71a. ' Meigs, iSenton, 98,99,0! pi. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

AMERICAN SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 
(1830-1860) 

IN most periods of American history a central 
thread can be discovered about which are ar- 
ranged the events of the times; but in the admin- 
istrations of Jackson and Van Buren a variety of 
questions struggled for precedence. A previous 
writer in this series has undertaken to disentangle 
the political and economic controversies of that 
interesting time, leaving the complexities of the 
anti-slavery movement for this separate treatment ; 
but it must not be supposed that in the people's 
minds slavery was disconnected from other economic 
problems which pressed upon the country, or that 
abolition was entirely different from the other social 
agitations of the period, or that even the agitators 
realized that slavery had the latent power of dividing 
the Union and bringing about civil war. 

Many other sectional problems arose in that pe- 



314 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

riod: the seaboard and the interior squabbled over 
internal improvements; east and west were some- 
times in antagonism over' public lands; north and 
south were at odds on nullification. Why should not 
the slavery conflict also come up and go down again 
like other passionately disputed questions? Why 
did the controversy, once fairly started, grow fiercer 
every year and bring in new and still more divisive 
issues? Why was the national government, which 
did its best to keep out of the controversy, drawn in 
deeper and deeper, till Congress became the forum 
of an excited discussion over slavery ? These ques- 
tions involve many disputed points which still per- 
plex people, states, sections, and the Union; and 
the only way to answer them is to make clear the 
moral, social, and economic conditions peculiar to 
slavery which caused the rising feeling of sectional 
bitterness and distrust; to reconstruct a vanished 
civilization; to breathe the breath of life into mas- 
ter, slave, and abolitionist, years since in their 
graves. 

No American in the thirties undertook to analyze 
and describe the standards and aspirations of his 
countrymen ; for the social life of the period we 
must depend on the testimony of many observers, 
each of whom saw only a part. Several foreigners 
undertook a more general task. Mrs. Trollope's 
book ^ was accepted by many people in England as 
a typical account of a disagreeable people. This 

^ TroUope, Domestic Manners of the Americans. 



i84o] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS S^S 

Englishwoman in 1827 dropped into a boarding- 
house in Cincinnati, saw the crude side of a fron- 
tier community — the "quick feeders," the empty- 
headed young women, and the tobacco chewers — 
and too late discovered a more refined and in- 
tellectual society in the east. Of characteristic 
American life she saw far less than Harriet Mar- 
tineau, who came over in 1834, and in her two 
years' stay travelled widely north and south. She 
found plenty to criticise in American life, yet ap- 
preciated the vigor and the advance of the nation.^ 
A third foreigner, accepted as one of the most far- 
seeing observers and critics of American character 
and statecraft, was Alexis de Tocqueville, a French- 
man, who came over in 1831, with the express pur- 
pose of studying the institutions of the Americans, 
and in 1835 and 1840 published his Democracy in 
America. This was the first scientific estimate of 
popular government in America, going beneath the 
self-satisfaction of a successful republic to discover 
the real forces which animated it, and to find out 
how far it swerved from its own standards. He saw 
in America a big, bustling community, intensely self- 
conscious, yet in general sticking to its basal prin- 
ciple of equality of opportunity and encouraging 
the individual to make the most of himself. 

All three of these critics noticed the lack of har- 
mony between free democratic government and 
slavery, and Tocqueville foresaw a menace to Amer- 

* Martineau, Society in America, passim. 



3i6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

ican democracy in the presence of a servile race, so 
that, even if slavery were to disappear, the prejudices 
to which it had given birth would remain; and his 
final generalization was that slavery, which is "un- 
just and by political economy is prejudicial, and 
which is now contrasted with democratical liberties 
and the information of our age, cannot survive." * 

No foreign or home-grown criticism could much 
affect either the vigorous growing democracy or the 
slave-holder ; but their attention was caught by the 
sectional rivalry of the north and south. For this 
rising hostility new material was furnished by the 
censuses of 1830 and 1840, which revealed the fact 
that the free states had permanently forged ahead 
of the slave-holding communities in nimibers: from 
about 2,000,000 each in 1790, the north in fifty years 
rose to 9,100,000 natives, besides 600,000 immigrants, 
a gain of 40 per cent, over 1830; while the south 
showed 7,300,000, a gain of 27 per cent. The main 
difference was the rapid birth-rate in the northeast- 
ern and northwestern states, where cheap land and 
variety of employment made the conditions of life 
easy. New York state increased in ten years by 
more than half a milHon; while Maryland, Virginia, 
and North Carolina were nearly at a stand-still. 

The urban population was growing faster than the 
average, but most of it was in the north, Boston, 
New York, and Philadelphia were still big, sprawling 

» Tocqueville, Democracy in Atncrica (Reeves* translation), 
I., 364. 388- 



i84o] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 3i7 

towns, ill -paved, faintly lighted, and miserably 
policed, and outside of half a dozen places the south 
had no cities at all; even Washington was still a 
dirty country town, where hogs ran at large. Charles- 
ton seemed more to "resemble a city of the Euro- 
pean continent, at least in the style of its houses, 
than either Boston or New York." ^ Savannah was 
a winter resort for southerners, and some people 
foresaw a migration of invalids and winter visitors 
from the north. New Orleans was the southern city 
par excellence, and the only one in the lower south 
except Charleston which had a lively commerce and 
direct relation with the old world. Most visitors 
were interested in the old French town, and the 
St. Charles Hotel, "with its large and elegant Co- 
rinthian portico, and the lofty swelling dome which 
surmounts it." ^ 

Social life in the United States was much influ- 
enced by the prosperity of the decade from 1827 to 
1837, but as yet there were few men of large forttme 
in the country: the richest planters probably had 
net incomes of less than fifty thousand dollars a year ; 
and Stephen Girard, of Philadelphia, and John Jacob 
Astor, of New York, were almost the only reputed 
millionaires. In the north there were few owners of 
large estates divided into farms ; most of the north- 
ern money came from trade and manufacturing, 
although the foundations of some great fortunes, 

* Bremer, Homes of the New World, I., 263. 
2 Mackay, Western World, II., 78. 



3i8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

such as the Astor's, were being laid by the purchase 
of real-estate in growing cities. In the north, new 
individuals were constantly pushing to the front, 
and society was in a state of flux; in the south, 
hereditary family dignities were better established, 
and it was hard to break into the charmed circle. 

Social life in 1830 was not essentially different 
from that of 1820.* The most significant thing was 
the contrast within the same nation, and even the 
same state, between the traditional civilization de- 
rived from England and the robust life of the fron- 
tier: in wealth, in the appliances of trade and 
manufactures, in education and in literature, the 
Atlantic coast was closely allied with Europe ; but 
the west and southwest was almost all frontier, and 
in northern New England and New York, in central 
Pennsylvania, and in the heart of all the southern 
states were large areas with a population of him- 
dreds of thousands still in the rude conditions of the 
early eighteenth century. 

These conditions were reflected in an impatience 
with orderly government. Though laws and con- 
stitutions were changed with amazing rapidity, peo- 
ple could not wait for the law to take its effect. No 
yellow journal of to-day has a more revolting list of 
crimes than could be made up from the press of that 
time.^ The duello had not yet disappeared from any 
part of the country, and in 1838 Jonathan Cilley, a 

• See Turner, New West {Am. Nation, XIV.), chaps, ii.-vi. 

* See extracts in Brothers, United States, 261-385. 



i84o] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 3^9 

member of Congress from New Hampshire, provoked 
a quarrel which resulted in his being challenged and 
killed by Graves, a member from Kentucky.* Alter- 
cations in the legislature and in Congress were not 
uncommon. Elections were frequently scenes of 
petty civil war.^ Fires were regular occasions for a 
fight between rival fire companies, who often let the 
buildings burn while they were settling their differ- 
ences. In 1834 came the burning of the Ursuline 
Convent, within sight of Bunker Hill monument, by 
an anti-Catholic mob, who drove out the nuns and 
their pupils, with the eventual loss of two lives ; and 
the only prisoner convicted for a share in the out- 
rage was pardoned by the governor.^ The negroes 
in the northern cities, as the poorest and most friend- 
less of the population, usually suffered from any 
mob, no matter what had been its original occasion; 
and the abolitionists came in for the most determined 
assaults of these lawless efforts to secure law and 
order. ^ Foreign immigration, which pushed men out 
of previous employment, organization of strikes on a 
larger scale than had been known before, attempts 
to get political control of city governments, all con- 
tributed to this reign of misrule. Perhaps the most 
decisive reason for it was the weakness of the local 
governments: not a single city had a disciplined 

1 Mass. Hist. Soc, Proceedings, 2d series, XII., 287-292. 

2 Brothers, Untied States, 297-316, 422-432. 

^ Ibid., 503-508; Mrs. Whitney, Burning of the Convent. 
^ See chap, xvii.. Hart's Slavery and Abolition. 



320 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

police force, and the state militia could not be relied 
upon to fight a mob. 

In the south the few cities were no better gov- 
erned than those of the north, and there was a 
greater indifference to human suffering, and brutal 
treatment of prisoners and other defenceless people. 
Alongside the strength, vigor, and hopefulness of the 
frontier was the uncouthness, the ignorance, the 
prejudice, and the latent barbarism of the man 
who spent his life in conquering nature and the 
savage.* 

This was shown in the ordinary administration 
of the criminal law: at a time when the Pennsyl- 
vania separate-cell penitentiary was known through- 
out the world as a model of humane treatment, the 
Georgia state-prison was a dirty place where "a 
piece of cooked meat was laid on the table for each 
prisoner without knives, forks, or plates." ' An 
abolitionist inmate of the Missouri penitentiary from 
1 84 1 imtil 1845 found it an awful place of cruelty 
and wretchedness, in which the warden came home 
drunk at midnight to drag white men out of their 
cells to be whipped before him, and where white 
women prisoners were sometimes chained to the 
wall.^ As late as 1854 a traveller saw a pillory and 
stocks in a Mississippi town, and was told that "a 
white man had been recently stripped, whipped and 

» See Turner, New West {Am. Nation, XIV.), chaps, iv.-viii. 
' Saxe-Weimar, Travels, II., 20. 
' Thompson, Prison Life, passim. 



i86o] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 321 

branded with a red hot iron by officers of the 
law."* 

The worst prison, however, was more merciful 
than lynch law. During the Revolution there was 
an actual Judge Charles Lynch in Virginia who took 
the responsibility of whipping loyalists, and gave his 
name to a system; but after 1830 the term "Lynch 
Law" came to be applied also to killings.^ The one 
justification of such a system is that frontier com- 
munities which have not provided themselves with 
the machinery of the law are subject to desperate 
and organized malefactors, and hence the practice 
gained headway in the west and southwest; but in 
the south the thing grew while the chief reason for 
it was disappearing. At first applied to ordinary 
criminals, such as murderers and gamblers,^ it soon 
began to reach negroes: one was burned alive by a 
mob near Greenville, South Carolina, in 1825, and 
fifty-six ascertained cases of lynching negroes oc- 
curred between 1823 and i860. 

If one looks for the most distinctive feature of the 
American people in 1830, it will not be home life or 
social disorder, but the religious and philanthropic 
life and experiences of the time. Depravity and 
crime were common enough from end to end of the 
Union, and though people were squeamish about 
theatres and dancing, social life was in most ways 

• Olmsted, Back Country, 246. 

' Cutler, Lynch Law, 23-40, 116. 

' Stuart, North America, II., 169; Cutler, Lynch Law, 98-100. 



322 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

grosser and ruder than at present; but in most 
communities, next to getting a living, the most im- 
portant thing in Hfe was rehgion, or at least 
religious observances. Puritanism, as a political 
force, was not yet dead in New England ; not until 
1835 was the Congregational church disestablished 
in Massachusetts, its last stronghold ; and a severe 
type of piety was common throughout the coun- 
try. For the ruder element, Sunday might be a 
period of carousal or of cock-fighting, according to 
the latitude, brt to most respectable people it was a 
serious and depressing day. A morning and an af- 
ternoon sermon were the ordinary provision, com- 
bined in many communities with a " Thursday Lect- 
ure," which was a third sermon; and on Sundays 
and week-days was added a variety of religious ex- 
ercises — sprayer meetings, conference meetings, class 
meetings, and love-feasts. For the children a door 
of hope was opened in the Sunday-school, which by 
1830 was making its way throughout the country; 
but it was not a place of perfect ease : children were 
expected weekly to learn and repeat not less than 
ten verses of Scripture and were encouraged to pro- 
digious feats of Biblical memory. The Sunday- 
school book of the time was not the washed-out 
novel now furnished to good children, but an ac- 
count of the early piety of some poor little creat- 
ure, whose reward for goodness it was to be taken 
away from his parents untimely. 

On the frontier the religious exercises were per- 



i86o] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 323 

force simpler and less frequent, though the camp- 
meeting, by its intensity, furnished plenteous excite- 
ment. It was an era of revivals : great movements 
of religious fervor swept over states and cities, or, 
as in the panic year of 1857, over the whole country, 
arousing and quickening thousands of persons who 
thenceforward took their part in the work of the 
churches. In this day of many interests and few 
enthusiasms it is hard to realize the immense force 
of religion and religious organizations upon the minds 
of the people. " Hell and brimstone " preaching was 
still common. Revivalists like Finney and Nettle ton* 
preached the tortures of damned souls until people 
shrieked and dropped fainting in their pews. Hell 
was a place very near at hand to the unbeliever, and 
even the faithful might under some systems of 
theology "fall from grace" and lose his birthright 
eternally. The theological schools ran to " systems " 
which were a combination of philosophy, logic, and 
St. Paul, accounting for the beginning and end of all 
things; and men like the Hodges, of Princeton, or 
Park, of Andover, sent out a school of disciples. 

Throughout the country the churches were more 
than religious organizations: they were ganglia of 
social life and intellectual influence, strengthened by 
fifty years of national organization. The Congrega- 
tional church, the Episcopal church, and the Pres- 
byterian church were the strongest denominations 
in New England, the middle, and the older southern 

* Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, chap. x. 



324 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

states; the Methodist and Baptist churches took 
root in the west, where indomitable men like Peter 
Cartwright went, riding circuit, holding camp-meet- 
ings, arousing the impenitent, comforting the seeker 
for salvation, and thrashing the rowdies who dis- 
turbed his meetings.* Most of the great churches 
threw off fragments which formed new sects: such 
were the Unitarians, seceders from the Congrega- 
tional church; and several offshoots of the Metho- 
dists and Baptists. The Catholic church, main- 
tained up to that time chiefly by descendants of 
English or French colonial settlers, now began to 
receive accessions, particularly from the Irish im- 
migrants. 

All the churches were touched by a new feeling 
of responsibility to mankind. Foreign missions, first 
suggested at Williams College in 1806, were taken 
up by most of the strong denominations; and in 
181 2 they began to organize home missions upon 
the frontiers, both western and southern.^ The 
American Bible Society, founded in 1 816, carried 
on a beneficent circulation of the Scriptures, which 
lasted on a large scale for more than half a century. 
In all these movements the south, thinly settled and 
in many places unable to support a paid or educated 
ministry, x>rofited less than the north, although the 
devotion to the churches was as strong and active 
as in the north. 

'Cartwright, AntobiograpJiy, 141-143, 231,311-316. 
' McMaster, United States, IV., 551, 



1850] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 325 

The chief characteristic of the religious life of 
the time was its sincere effort to make religion 
effective, to apply the touchstone of Christ's teach- 
ings and life to all moral questions, to make in- 
dividual and community correspond to the prin- 
ciples of Christianity. Hence, in a country where 
all forms of state aid to religion disappeared, 
church buildings were multiplied, missionaries were 
supported, denominational colleges sprang up. To 
the amiable it was an unspeakable grief that 
millions of people should be doomed to ever- 
lasting perdition because the gospel had not been 
brought to their ears; and one of the main tap- 
roots of abolition was the feeling of horror and 
responsibility that hundreds of thousands of negro 
slaves, because outside the fold of accredited be- 
lievers, should be going down to the pit of endless 
punishment,^ 

This passionate desire to save the perishing, as 
well as to raise the standards of the people, led 
directly to reform by legislation, such as the move- 
ment against the recognized excess in the use of 
intoxicating liquor, begun in 181 7, enlarged by the 
Washington societies in 1830, and later developed 
into a demand for state statutes forbidding the 
liquor traffic altogether,^ In the thirties also sprang 
up the Woman's Rights movement ; at first directed 

* Cf. Martlneau, Society in America, II., pt. iv. 

* Cf. Smith, Parties and Slavery {Am. Nation, XVIII.), chap, 
iii. 

22 



326 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

to the improvement of girls' schools and the placing 
of a married woman's property in her own hands, it 
speedily went much further, and in 1848 extended 
to a demand for woman suffrage.* 

One of the characteristics of all these reform move- 
ments was the feeling that each was "a cause" to 
which people might well devote their whole lives; 
and they were organized in national societies, fur- 
nished with newspaper organs, and supported by 
frequent meetings and appeals to the public. Be- 
tween 1820 and 1840 this uneasy spirit took form 
in a series of socialistic communities. When the old 
statutes against strikes and combinations of work- 
ing-men were being modified, it was an easy transi- 
tion to the idea that those who worked with their 
hands might set themselves apart into self -support- 
ing communities. The Shakers, founded half a cen- 
tury earlier, were still organizing vigorous societies 
which were practically mediaeval convents over 
again. Another communistic society was that of 
the Rappists, at New Harmony, Indiana; their 
work was taken over in 1826 by Robert Dale Owen, 
an enthusiastic Englishman, who made a declara- 
tion in favor of free love and saw his community 
melt away. Later the influence of Fourier was felt 
in the organization of little communities called 
phalansteries, especially in western New York and 
northern Ohio; and various attempts were made 

• On the reform movements, c£. Martineau, Society in America, 
II., chap. iv. 



i845] SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS 327 

to found religious socialistic bodies in the far 
west.* 

Joseph Smith, of Vermont, in 1827, according to 
his account, began to receive "revelations," one of 
which directed him to certain golden plates which 
through two stones, the Urim and Thummim, he 
was able to read, and to translate into a book, pub- 
lished in 1830 as the Book of Mormon. It was writ- 
ten in Biblical style, an interminable account of the 
lost tribes of Israel in North America, and included 
many prophecies apt for the times. ^ First organized 
at Manchester, Vermont, in April, 1830, with six 
members, the Mormons moved in 1831 to Kirtland, 
Ohio, where they took the name of " Latter Day 
Saints." After attempting to settle in Missouri, 
Smith gathered in 1840, at Nauvoo, Illinois, a settle- 
ment of about fifteen thousand people. He aroused 
the hostility of the local authorities, and in 1844 
was put in jail, and there killed by a mob. This 
obscure sect, founded on the materialistic basis that 
God is a material being, " having a body, parts and 
passions,"^ supported by a system of tithes, and in- 
spired by timely revelations, had a success and en- 
durance which makes it stand out from all other 
socialistic communities of the time. 

At the other pole of reform through social organi- 

' McCarthy, Early Social and Religious Experivienls in Iowa; 
Perkins and Wick, The Aniana Society; Saxe-Weimar, Travels, 
II., chap. xxi. 2 Linn, Mormons, chap. xi. • 

^Lalor, Cyclopcedia, II., 910. 



328 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

zation was Brook Farm, which sprang out of an 
idealism traceable in the ruggedest Puritans of the 
New England colonies; the force reappeared in the 
"transcendental" movement, partly philosophical, 
partly religious, and partly social, headed by Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. A band of enthusiastic men and 
women gathered in 1841 at Brook Farm, near Bos- 
ton, among whom as residents or sympathetic 
visitors were Charles A. Dana, later editor of the 
New York Sun, Margaret Fuller, Thomas Wentworth 
Higginson, G. W. Curtis, Emerson, and Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, who in his Blithedale Romance idealized 
this community. After six years' existence a fire 
quenched the spirits of the Brook- Farmers, who did 
not know how to farm, and the institution ceased 
to be ; though the influence of those who experienced 
it has remained an intellectual and moral force in 
New England and throughout the country.* 

* Wendell, Literary History oj America, 304-310. 



CHAPTER XIX 

PLANTATION LIFE 
(1830-1860) 

ONE reason for the outbreak of the abolition 
movement was increasing knowledge of the con- 
ditions of slavery. Improvements in transit, closer 
commercial relations between north and south, and 
a spirit of investigation into social conditions made 
possible an era of travel and observation in the 
south by foreigners and northerners.^ The aboli- 
tionists at home clipped items from the southern 
newspapers and listened to the narratives of the 
fugitive slave. To describe the plantation system, 
especially its cruel and repulsive side, was their 
stock in trade ; while in the defences of slavery and 
the replies to the abolitionists the gentler side of 
slave-holding was held up to view.^ 

The visitor who expected to find a distinct type 
of slave countenance and person was disappointed. 
Some had large infusions of white blood and pos- 
sessed European features; and some pure negroes 

1 See list of travellers in chap, xxii., Hart's Slavery and Abolition. 

2 On the general conditions of slavery, Hart, Contemporaries, 

in., §§ 169-173- 



330 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

had oval faces, slender and supple figures, graceful 
hands, and small feet.^ Nevertheless, the majority 
of the negroes were coarse and unattractive in ap- 
pearance. Olmsted notes a group of road -making 
women as "clumsy, awkward, gross, elephantine in 
all their movements; jjouting, grinning, and leering 
at us; sly, sensual, and shameless in all their ex- 
pressions and demeanor." ^ Among the negroes, as 
among other races, there was no fixed standard of 
capacity or character. Some masters were never 
weary of telling of the faithfulness and attachment 
of their slaves ; of their care for the children of the 
family; of their incorruptibility. One champion 
of slavery enumerates the virtues of slaves: "Fidel- 
ity — often proof against all temptation — even death 
itself — an eminently cheerful and social temper . . . 
submission to constituted authority." ^ But the 
general tone towards the negro was one of dis- 
trust and aversion. Many masters believed that 
" the negroes were so addicted to lying and stealing 
that they were not to be trusted out of sight or 
hearing." ^ At best they were thought big children, 
pleased with trifles, and easily forgetful of penalties 
and pains. 

The slaves were rough and brutal among them- 
selves. Friendly observers complained of "the in- 

* Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 42, 85. 

* Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 387; cf. Martineau, Society 
in America, I., 212-234. 

* Harper, in Pro-Slavery Argument, 46. 

* Reported by Bucldngham, Slave States, II., 87. 



i86o] PLANTATION LIFE 331 

solent tyranny of their demeanor toward each other; 
. . . they are diabolically cruel to animals too, and 
they seem to me as a rule hardly to know the differ- 
ence between truth and falsehood." ^ Their indo- 
lence was the despair of every slave-owner, or was 
overcome by the strictest discipline. In many small 
households with few slaves and no patriarchal tradi- 
tion there was constant friction and flogging ; their 
shiftlessness, waste of their master's property, neg- 
lect of his animals, were almost proverbial ; and 
the looseness of the marriage -tie and immorality 
of even the best of the negroes were subjects of 
sorrow to those who felt the responsibility for 
them.^ 

Many of the negroes showed intellectual qualities, 
especially household slaves ; and thousands of slaves 
learned to read and write. The art was frowned 
upon, for "what has the slave of any country to do 
with heroic virtues, liberal knowledge, or elegant 
accomplishments?"^ Nevertheless, the number of 
slaves who could read and write was probably not 
far from one-tenth of the whole.** They were taught 
by kind-hearted mistresses and children of the 
family, who liked to give a pleasure and who disre- 
garded the statutes against the practice ; once taught, 
they commimicated the art to one another, and secret 

* Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 263. 

' Harper, in Pro-Slavery Argument, 38-41. 
^ Ibid., 36, 46. 

* Grace E. Burroughs, unpublished manuscript on Educated 
Slaves. 



332 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

schools for the children of slaves were not un- 
known.* 

Some of the letters written by escaped slaves 
showed education and superior power of expression. 
Yet in this period appeared no such slave prodigies 
as Phyllis Wheatley, the slave poet, whose verses 
were kindly received by Washington; or Benjamin 
Banneker, the astronomer, who was a guest at the 
table of President Jefferson. The literary negroes 
were nearly all escaped slaves, whose reminiscences 
bear the trace of a white man's correcting pen. The 
one literary opportunity for the slave on the soil 
was the telling of folk-stories, which show a vivid 
power of description, an imagination which personi- 
fies the ideas of the story-teller, and a rich and 
unctuous humor which delights by its sudden tiims 
of situation. The only art in which the negroes ex- 
celled was music. They have an intuitive quick- 
ness in picking up simple musical instruments, and 
developed, if they did not invent, the banjo; but 
their songs were their chief intellectuar efforts; the 
words, simple, repetitive, sometimes senseless, were 
made the vehicle for a plaintive music. ^ 

A proportion of the slaves now difficult to ascer- 

* Bremer, Homes of the New World, II., 499; Burke, Reminis' 
cences, 85; Douglass, Narrative, 32-44; Kemble, Georgian Plan- 
tation, 230, 257; Smedes, Metnorials of a Southern Planter, 79. 

^'ila.rris. Nights with Uncle Remus, 143-206; Olmsted, Sea- 
board Slave States, 551, 607; Bremer, Homes of the New World, 
II., 174; Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 127, 218; Douglass, Nar- 
rative, 13-15'. 



i86ol PLANTATION LIFE 333 

tain was employed in other than household or field 
tasks. A few were fishermen, employed as cooks 
or hands on coasting craft;* a larger number served 
as roustabouts on the river steamers, where their 
picturesque appearance, songs, jollity, and hard 
work in handling freight and fuel attracted the at- 
tention of all travellers.^ Slaves were freely used 
in the turpentine industry, which required very little 
skill, and in the lumbering regions, as wood-choppers 
and to prepare lumber. Mining employed almost no 
slaves, the labor of free whites or free negroes was 
considered more profitable.^ 

In addition to these rough tasks, a fraction of the 
slaves and free negroes, certainly not one-twentieth 
of the able-bodied men, were employed in skilled 
trades, especially building. Nearly all large planta- 
tions had a little force of blacksmiths, carpenters, 
bricklayers, and the like, and such skilled hands were 
frequently hired out by their masters.'* Most of the 
plantation buildings in the south were constructed 
by slave labor, and many of the town and city build- 
ings. Some slave mechanics could not only build, 
but draw plans, make contracts, and complete a 
house, even hiring out their own time and employing 
men on their own responsibility.' This small pro- 

* Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 351-355. 

* Ibid., 551-564; Stuart, North America, II., 153; Bucking- 
ham, Slave States, I., 264. ' Lyell, Second Visit, I., 216. 

* Smedes, Memorials of a Southern Planter, 104. 

' Letter of G. W. Steedman, of St. Louis, to the author; cf. 
Lyell, Second Visit, I., 267. 



334 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

portion of industrial slaves was not much increased 
by slaves working in factories. The few iron fur- 
naces in the south employed negro labor, hiring it 
at about two hundred dollars a year; and gangs 
of slaves could be found in the tobacco factories.* 
Among the few textile mills was a bagging fac- 
tory in Lexington, Kentucky, and cotton mills near 
Huntsville and at Salada, near Columbia;^ mills at 
Scottsville were profitably carried on by the labor 
of slave families owned by the corporation. De Bow, 
in 1852, was still hopeful of slave operatives, though 
only about one-fortieth of the cotton grown in the 
south was manufactured in the south, most of it by 
white labor. ^ 

Coming back again to the plantation, a sharp 
distinction was drawn between two great classes of 
slaves — the field slaves and house-servants. The 
present tradition in the south is that these house- 
servants were universally intelligent, faithful, and 
devoted ; indeed, there were many warm attachments 
between the slaves and the members of the owner's 
family,^ yet people at the time did not find them 
either refined or well-kept. On the Butler planta- 
tion in Georgia there was neither table nor chair in 
the kitchen ; the boys slept on the hearth, and the 

'Olmsted, Texas Journey, 19; Buckingham, Slave States, I., 
43; Pickavd, Kidtiapped and Ransomed, 4^-4$; Bremer, Homes 
of the New World, II., 509. 

=> Htmt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXVIII., 509; XXXIX., 755. 

^ De Bow, Industrial Resources, II., 112. 

* Smedes, Memorials of a Southern Planter, passim. 



i86ol PLANTATION LIFE 335 

women on rough board bedsteads strewn with a 
little tree-moss. Rooms for household servants were 
almost nowhere provided; either they slept in sepa- 
rate buildings or stretched themselves on the floor 
or the passages, or even in the rooms of the family 

One reason for the glamour cast over household 
slaves was that the best of the race was drawn mto 
that service. The highest position to which a slave 
could aspire was to be butler or cook in the great 
house, where food was plenty, company enjoyable, 
and perquisites many .^ The black mammy, who per- 
haps had brought up a whole family of white children 
—for white nurses were almost unknown— is still 
cherished in the minds of many southern people; 
but when she was young she was not always a per- 
son whose moral character influenced for good the 
children for whom she cared; and the maids too 
often had special temptations and dangers m the 
presence of the master and the master's sons. 

The characteristic life of the negro was as a plan- 
tation laborer; he raised the greater part of the sur- 
plus product of the south and was the basis of most 
wealth- but he was a very unsatisfactory laborer. 
That a' thrifty farmer like Olmsted should be scan- 
dalized at the inefficiency of the negro is not re- 
markable;' but he made the same impression on his 

1 Kemble Georgian Plantation, 23, 66. 
^ Smedes, Memorials of a Southern Planter 82-84. 
3 Olmsted, Back Country, 432; Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 
10, 44-47. 99. 105. 480-483- 



336 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

master, who freely acknowledged that slave labor 
could never be so cheap as free labor.* Owner after 
owner complained to visitors of his slaves. "In 
working niggers we must always calculate that they 
will not labor at all except to avoid punishment ; . . . 
it always seems on the plantation as if they took 
pains to break all the tools and spoil all the cattle 
that they possibly can." ^ 

On some plantations slaves worked from sunrise 
to sundown, about the hours of northern laborers 
then, and in addition had to cook their own meals. 
In many parts of the south there was task work. 
The task which was an average for a gang could be 
performed by some members of it so quickly that 
they got through as early as three, or even one 
o'clock; but it was almost impossible to increase 
the average result by any reward or punishment. 
On all plantations the women worked alongside the 
men, even to the extent of driving a plough. Too 
little attention was paid to the peculiar needs of 
working-women near childbirth, and lifelong injuries 
from overstrain among them were not uncommon. 
Nevertheless, the testimony of witnesses is that, in 
general, the day's work of a slave was considerably 
less than that of hired workmen in the north.' 

The ordinary food of the slave was corn-bread and 

' Harper, in Pro-Slavery Argument, 26. 
2 Conversation in Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 105. 
' Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 334; Olmsted, Back Country, 
49, 80, 81. 



i86o] PLANTATION LIFE . 337 

bacon, with sweet-potatoes and some other vegeta- 
bles; a peck of meal and three pounds of bacon a 
week, with a little sugar and wheat -flour, was 
thought a suitable ration for a hand ; but many 
slaves had a little time for cultivating their own 
garden-patches, kept chickens, and sometimes pigs, 
with an occasional opossum or even a bear from their 
nocturnal hunting. The ordinary rations seem to 
have been sufficient for keeping up health. The 
conditions of life were easy in the south, and none 
but an extraordinarily stupid or cruel master would 
keep his slaves down to a point where they could not 
do full work; and the household servants and their 
families, who swarmed in and out of the kitchen, 
never suffered. The delightful southern cooking in 
such households, the inimitable fried chicken, the 
delicious beaten biscuit, the unrealizable methods of 
cooking fowls, turkeys, and game, did not extend 
among the poor planters or the poor whites, who 
for the most part lived in an atmosphere of grease 
and frying, with corresponding ill effects upon their 
digestion. 

The clothing of slaves was of every variety, from 
the smart mulatto lady's-maid, who wore the still 
fresh dress that had been her young mistress's, down 
to the pickaninny of three, five, or eight years of 
age, who went as nature made him. Most planta- 
tions issued coarse clothing at stated intervals. The 
shoes and some clothing on large plantations were 
made up by slaves set apart for that purpose, and 



338 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

house slaves often took pride in being smartly dress- 
ed in clothing fitted to them by professional tail- 
ors.* 

The cost of maintenance of field slaves was a ques- 
tion much discussed, and estimates by planters va- 
ried from fifteen dollars a year, for food and clothing, 
up to fifty dollars; ^ to which should be added medi- 
cal attendance, which might be five dollars a head, 
and overseer's wages, an average of ten dollars 
a head. If, therefore, the annual product of the 
plantation averaged seventy-five to one hundred 
dollars per head of all the slaves, there was some- 
thing to pay for wear and tear, interest, tools, etc., 
and a profit; but leaving out the old, the sick, the 
children too young to work, and the women neces- 
sary for household and other services, not more than 
one-third of the slaves on a plantation could ordi- 
narily be put into the field. 

The ideal plantation had a "great house," or 
family mansion, with its avenue of live-oaks sweep- 
ing up to the front doors, and at a little distance 
the negro quarters. Here are two accounts written 
within six years of each other: "Each cabin was a 
framed building, the walls boarded and whitewashed 
on the outside, lathed and plastered within, the roof 
shingled; . . . divided into two family tenements, 



' Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, II., 27, 112, 6S6-694; Adams, 
Sotithside Viciu, 29-32; Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 52, 179; 
Burke, Reminiscences, 113. 

' De Bow, Industrial Resources, I., 150. 



i86o] PLANTATION LIFE 339 

each twenty - one by twenty - one ; each tenement 
divided into three rooms. . . , Besides these rooms, 
each tenement had a cockloft, entered by steps 
from the household room. Each tenement is occu- 
pied, on an average, by five persons." * "No at- 
tempt at any drainage or any convenience existed 
near them. . . . Heaps of oyster shells, broken crock- 
ery, old shoes, rags, and feathers were found near 
each hut. The huts were all alike windowless, and 
the apertures, intended to be glazed some fine day, 
were generally filled up with a deal board. The 
roofs were shingle and the white-wash which had 
once given the settlement an air of cleanliness, was 
now only to be traced by patches." ^ 

Slavery made real family life almost impossible, 
except on the smaller plantations, where one or more 
families of slaves were often the sole valuable asset 
of the owners, and they grew up alongside their 
masters. On the larger plantations the house slaves 
could bring up their own families, but marriage was 
subject to many difficulties. Many planters disliked 
to have their slaves married to slaves of their neigh- 
bors. On their own plantations owners exercised a 
kind of pater potestas over the alliances of their 
slaves, occasionally uniting them in such simple 
marriage services as, "Do you make Joe build a 
fire for Phillis and see that Phillis cooks for Joe and 

' Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 422. 

'Russell, Diary North and South, I., 212; cf. Olmsted, Sea- 
board Slave States, 44, iii, 421, 629, 659, 692, 698. 



340 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

washes his clothes." * The negroes preferred a mar- 
riage ceremony, and sometimes were united in form 
at the great house. "I had a weddin' — a big wed- 
din' — for Marlow's kitchen. Your pa gib me a head 
weddin' — kilt a mutton — a round o' beef — tukkeys 
— cakes, one on t'other — trifle. I had all the chany 
off de sideboard, cups and saucers, de table, de white 
table-cloth. I had on your pa's wife's weddin' 
gloves an' slippers an* veil. De slippers was too 
small, but I put my toes in. Miss Mary had a mighty 
neat foot. Marster brought out a milk-pail o' toddy 
and more in bottles. De gentlemans an' marster 
stand up on de tables. He didn't rush 'mongst de 
black folks, you know. I had a tearin'-down wed- 
din, to be sho'. Nobody else didn't hab sich a 
weddin." ^ 

In the nature of things, slave marriages were 
imstable. The negroes themselves did not feel a 
strong sense of obligation to their spouses, and fre- 
quently deserted one another. However, so long as 
there were little children, somebody must take care 
of them, though, inasmuch as the little negro was 
welcomed chiefly as adding to the wealth of his 
master, the ordinary beautiful relations of child and 
parent were difficult. On some plantations there 
was a nursery for the babies while their mothers 
were in the field. As the old slave woman expressed 
it, " You feel when your child is bom you can't have 

• Pickard, Kidnapped and Ransomed, 153. 

* Aunt Harriet, in Smedes, Memorials of a Southern Planter , 55. 



i86o] PLANTATION LIFE 341 

the bringing of it up." ^ As children grew up they 
were employed for light tasks about the house and 
the place, and often were made petted playthings 
and riotous companions for their young masters, 
unless, indeed, their yellow tinge suggested to some 
member of the household that they were "a little 
more than kin and less than kind." ^ 

One of the strong arguments for slavery was that 
it abolished the poor-house and provided for the 
infirm and the aged. Absolute abandonment of a 
slave by a master who had the means to provide 
for him was next to impossible, because he would 
thereby become a public charge; and the slave 
codes commonly provided penalties for such cases. 
Sometimes old slaves were protected characters ; ' 
but there were many instances of sick and old slaves 
who had but a pittance for their support."* 

On many plantations the negroes were allowed 
privileges, such as the right to keep bees, or to sell 
small articles that had been made; and occasional 
holidays, especially at Christmas-time, when work 
was sometimes suspended for several days.' The 
right to keep truck-patches and to cultivate them 
was highly appreciated by the negroes. Money gifts 
to slaves were not uncommon, especially at Christ- 
mas, when tobacco, clothing, and molasses were 

' Adams. Southside View, 84; cf. Page, The Negro, 174. 

' "Southern Woman," in N. Y. Independent, March 17, 1904, 
p. 586. ' Adams, Southside View, 47. 

* Parsons, Inside View of Slavery, 154; Elliot, Sinfulness of 
Slavery, I., 212. 'Adams, Southside Vieiu, 35. 

23 



342 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

often liberally dealt out, sometimes to the value of 
ten dollars for each slave.' Some slaves earned con- 
siderable sums by working for themselves on Sun- 
day. The negro also had his recreations, picnics, 
and barbecues, visiting from plantation to planta- 
tion ; in the cities going to shows, racing horses, and 
fighting.- 

"Yes, honey," said a reminiscent slave, "dat he 
did gib us Fourth o' July, — a plenty o' holiday, — a 
beef kilt, a mutton, hogs, salt and pepper, an' ebery- 
thing. He hab a gre't trench dug, an' a whole load 
o' wood put in it, an' burned down to coals. Den 
dey put wooden spits across, an' dey had spoons an' 
basted de meat, an' he did not miss givin' us whis- 
key to drink, — a plenty of it, too. An' we 'vite all 
de culled people aroun', an' dey come, an' we had 
fine times. Our people was so good, and dey had 
so much. Dyar wam't no sich people no whyar. 
Marster mus'n't be named de same day as udder 
people." ' 

The slaves greatly enjoyed religious meetings. 
Some churches had special galleries set apart for 
negro attendance, and there were also many sepa- 
rate negro churches, like the rural white churches, 
small and rough buildings, standing at cross-roads 

'Olmsted, Back Country, 51; cf. Olmsted, Seaboard Slave 
Slates. 43Q-443. 4S4, 6S2, 695. 

'Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, 63, 75, 101-103, oQ4. 4iQ. 
630; Burke, Reminiscences, 92; Smedes, Memorials c>f a SoutJu-rn 
Planter, 161-164. 

^ Smedes, Memoricds o^ a Soutlwrn Planter, 58. 



i86o] PLANTATION LIFE 343 

far away from settlements. Like their poor white 
neighbors, any one who had a gift of exhorting and 
praying, thereby became a minister; and in both 
city and country churches there was an immense 
amount of the shouting which was equally enjoyed 
by many white congregations. 

Such religious services, though sometimes imbued 
with a genuine religious spirit and an incitement to 
the better life, were more often an appeal to the 
emotional nature. In the camp - meetings, which 
were held on the same model as those of the whites, 
and sometimes in the same place, though in sepa- 
rate amphitheatres, the negro had his highest enjoy- 
ment. An eye-witness says: "In the camp of the 
blacks is heard a great tumult and a loud cry. Men 
roar and bawl out; women screech like pigs about 
to be killed; many, having fallen into convulsions, 
leap and strike around them, so that they are 
obliged to be held down. It looks here and there 
like a regular fight; some of the calmer particijjants 
laugh. Many a cry of anguish may be heard, but 
you distinguish no words excepting *0h, I am a 
sinner!' and 'Jesus! Jesus!'" * 

In a Christian community believing that all men 
had souls to save, it would have been monstrous to 
deny the opportunity of salvation to the African, 
Some plantations had little churches of their own; 
masters permitted prayer-meetings in the houses of 
negroes; elsewhere services were held at the great 

' Bremer, Homes of the New World, I,, 309. 



344 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

houses by the owners, although many people thought 
it dangerous.* Wherever attempts were made at 
formal religious instruction to slaves the question 
at once arose of their being encouraged to learn to 
read the Bible, though it must be presumed to be in 
accord with slavery. The safest way seemed to be 
to give the African "acquaintance with the word 
of God . . . through oral instruction." ^ 

One side of the Christian religion was made suffi- 
ciently familiar to most negroes — namely, injunctions 
to servants to obey their masters and to be satisfied 
in the station to which the Lord had appointed 
them; yet many thousands found comfort and 
hope in the belief that a life of labor and privation 
was to be followed by a glorious eternity in heaven, 
although even here there was a doubt as to whether 
it would be the same heaven as that of the white 
people. 

The question of a future life came home to the 
negro because he was so much more subject than 
his white brother to death; among the diseases 
most fatal to negroes were congestion of the lungs, 
yaws (a contagious filth disease), "negro consump- 
tion," and colic. Some medical authorities diag- 
nosed also "hebetude of mind," a general breaking- 
down of the will and nervous force which over- 
seers commonly supposed to be simple insolence 
and punished accordingly. The negroes were liable 

' Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 267. 
* Adams, Southside View, 57. 



i86oj PLANTATION LIFE 345 

to intermittent fever, probably of a malarial char- 
acter, and other forms of mysterious fevers. The 
greatest loss of life was among children, who had 
poor food and often most ignorant care.^ Epilepsy 
was infrequent, and the census of 1840 showed 
only 1407 insane slaves, although there were doubt- 
less many who were really non compos, but were 
retained on the plantation. Good plantations al- 
ways had a contract doctor by the year to at- 
tend any cases that occurred; but the overseer 
was frequently the judge as to the nature of 
the disease, the remedy, and the moment when 
the work was to be resumed. Large estates had 
hospitals and separate lying-in hospitals, the char- 
acter of which depended upon the humanity and 
intelligence of the owner. ^ 

The death-rate of the negroes was then, as it has 
continued to be, much larger than that of the 
whites.^ Registration statistics in slavery times are 
incomplete except in Charleston. The very unsatis- 
factory figures of 1850 showed a white and free-ne- 
gro death-rate of 13.6, and a slave-rate of 16.4 in 
the thousand. That the negroes continued to in- 
crease at about the same ratio as the whites was 
due to their phenomenal birth-rate. 

* De Bow, Industrial Resources, II., 292-303, 315-329; Kerable, 
Georgian Plantation, 39, 90. 

'Olmsted, Back Country, 77; Kemble, Georgian Plantation, 
30-35, 121, 214-216. 

' Eighth U. S. Census, i860. Population, Introduction, p. xlv. 



CHAPTER XX 

SOCIAL FERMENT IN THE NORTH 
(1850-1860) 

THE life of the people of the northern states, in- 
cluding under this term the border slave states, 
was not wholly concerned with politics and indus- 
trial activity, although profoundly influenced by 
them both. It had its own current, a mingled one, 
in which may be discerned two streams, one the 
continuation of the American intellectual and demo- 
cratic renaissance which began after the second war 
with England, and the other a growth of new ten- 
dencies, arising from new social conditions and des- 
tined to alter the face of American society. 

In many ways this decade may be regarded as the 
culmination of that outburst of national conscious- 
ness and self-assertion which transformed politics in 
the days of Andrew Jackson. Democracy now ruled 
unchallenged in public life and thought, the democ- 
racy, that is, of Jefferson and Jackson, which stopped 
short of including the negro, however much it em- 
j3hasized the equality of the white man. By this 
time the states had completed the remodelling of 
their constitutions, and only a few serious changes 



i86ol NORTHERN FERMENT 347 

were left to the years after 1850, Nearly every- 
where state offices, including the judiciary, had been 
made elective, terms had been shortened, qualifica- 
tions other than manhood and residence abolished, 
and the final decision in matters of supreme impor- 
tance in the public eye, such as the permission to 
charter banks or the extension of the suffrage, left 
to popular referendum. 

In federal politics, state rights enjoyed supreme 
prestige, receiving the tribute not only of the south 
but of northern statesmen and political organiza- 
tions. In Congress, adherence to a strict construc- 
tion of the constitution was a commonplace of 
speeches on all subjects, and stood as the approved 
principle of deciding all public questions, at least in 
theory. By the judiciary, also, the doctrine of state 
rights was treated with respect and solemnity, and 
only a few individuals in any branch of the federal 
service ventured to employ the political conceptions 
of the Federalists or of the older generation of Whigs. 
The same Jacksonian democracy continued to ap- 
pear in the attitude of the United States towards for- 
eign countries, as illustrated in the bold words of 
Webster and Marcy and Huelsemann and in the cir- 
cular on diplomatic costume. 

By the year i860, Jacksonism in politics had 
triumphed throughout the north and west. The 
Republican and Democratic organizations, which 
confronted each other, differed in no respect of 
machinery or control. Each was fully democratic 



348 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

in structure and leadership, and relied upon the 
same appeal to the sentiments and interests of the 
masses which had carried Jackson to victory in 
1828 and were now universal.* 

The last stronghold of conservatism fell in the 
north when the Whig party collapsed under the ex- 
citement of the anti-Nebraska campaign, and the 
tumultuous, parvenu organization of the Know- 
Nothings arose on its ruins. The aristocracy of the 
"Cotton Whigs" remained excluded from politics, a 
class of cultured, conservative gentlemen who dis- 
liked slavery and were loath to see it extended, but 
who disliked radicalism, hard words, and bad man- 
ners still more, and were unable to overlook these 
qualities in the new anti-slavery organizations of the 
Know - Nothings or the Republicans. " I deplore 
the passage of the Nebraska act," said Robert C. 
Winthrop, of Massachusetts, " but I honestly believe 
that Northern rashness and violence have been the 
main instruments in accomplishing its worst results. 
. . . Anti-slavery agitation has introduced a strain 
of vituperation and defamation into our discussions 
which is perfectly unendurable"; and again: "I 
have an unchangeable conviction that intemperate 
anti-slavery agitation has been a source of a very 
large part of the troubles by which our country has 
been disturbed." ^ 

In the world of thought the years between 1850 

' Ostrogorski, Political Organization, II., 92-1 11. 
^Winthrop, Memoir of Robt. C. Winthrop, 181, 189, 193. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 349 

and i860 marked the flood - tide of the literary 
movement which began thirty years before. With 
the exception of Poe, who died in 1849, and Cooper, 
who died in 185 1, nearly all the writers who first 
created American literature were at their prime. 
Within these years the New England poets produced 
some of their most enduring and popular works. 
Longfellow published the "Golden Legend," "Hia- 
watha," and "Miles Standish"; Whittier, although 
immersed in the anti-slavery cause, issued Songs of 
Labor and made a collection of his poetical works, 
as did Bryant, likewise an anti-slavery leader. In 
1857 a new periodical, The Atlantic Monthly, was 
established as an especial representative for New 
England culture by Lowell, aided by Emerson, 
Holmes, and others ; and soon the ' ' Autocrat of the 
Breakfast-Table" was enlivening its pages, together 
with essays by Lowell, the editor, and poems and 
essays by Emerson. At the same time, Hawthorne 
reached the summit of his genius in the Scarlet 
Letter at one end of the decade and the Marble Faun 
at the other. Apart from these writers, but none 
the less a product of the period, stood two others: 
Thoreau, whose Walden, in 1854, was the last word 
of democratic individualism, and Whitman, whose 
Leaves of Grass, in 1855, carried the doctrine of 
democracy to the pitch of mysticism. Beside 
these older writers stood younger ones just com- 
ing into prominence — Bayard Taylor, George Will- 
iam Curtis, Mrs. Stowe, and a nurnber of lesser 



350 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

lights who seemed destined to be worthy successors 
in poetry or prose. 

In other literary lines the same fertility of Ameri- 
can genius appeared. Bancroft, in 1852, resumed, 
after a pause of twelve years, his History of the 
United States, Hildreth completed his History of the 
United States a little later, Prescott wrote his Philip 
II. and Irving his Life of Washington at the same 
time, and three new historians of great distinction 
appeared — Parkman, whose Conspiracy of Pontiac 
came out in 1851; Motley, whose Dutch Republic 
began in 1856; and Palfrey, whose New England was 
issued in 1858. Other writers entered the field of 
political economy — Bowen in 1856, and Bascom and 
Henry C. Carey in 1859; Lieber wrote his Civil 
Liberty and Self-Government in the earlier years of 
the period, and Woolsey his International Law in the 
later ones. In the regions of abstract thought. Way- 
land's Elements of Intellectual Philosophy appeared 
in 1854, and Bushnell's Nature and the Supernatural 
in 1858. In all fields of Hterary effort it seemed as 
though the flowering-time of American thought and 
scholarship had arrived. The reading public of the 
ante-bellum world, not distracted by any great flood 
of cheap, entertaining, ephemeral reading - matter, 
enjoyed a far purer intellectual life and were habit- 
uated to a more purely literary culture than was the 
case at a later time. 

Side by side with the culmination of the literary 
renaissance of the first half of the century came the 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 351 

full development of the intellectual restlessness 
which for a generation had been producing a suc- 
cession of reform movements of numberless kinds. 
Revolutionary radicalism pervaded all fields, in re- 
ligion, politics, and morals, making of the ten years 
before the Civil War an era of agitation scarcely 
paralleled before or since. Socialism of the earlier, 
communistic type was seen to be showing signs of 
weakness, and most of the Fourierist or similar ex- 
periments started in earlier years now broke down; 
but in its place came a new revolutionary socialism 
from Europe, founded by German immigrants. More 
characteristic of the period was the advocacy of 
absolute personal independence and freedom from 
any constraint in mind or body, by the individualist, 
who carried his logic of liberty to the point of com- 
plete anarchism — the "Come-outer," as he was gen- 
erally styled in those days. 

Probably the most aggressive reform movement 
at this time, and certainly the most conspicuous, 
was the agitation for women's rights, and especially 
woman suffrage, which filled the place in public 
esteem formerly held by the abolitionists. Num- 
bers of devoted women, burning to emancipate their 
sex, undertook to begin by emancipating themselves, 
and v/hile attempting to enter all sorts of callings — 
the law, the ministry, medicine — felt also obliged to 
manifest their personal freedom and rationalism in 
other less vital but still more conspicuous ways. 
Short hair and the " Bloomer costume," in the early 



352 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

fifties, were adopted as signs of intellectual liberty 
by some, and brought upon the advocates of the 
movement an amount of popular ridicule and coarse 
iibuse which no other action could have attracted. 
Such women as the Reverend Antoinette Brown, 
Dr. Lucy Stone, and Miss Susan B. Anthony were 
regarded by the conservative with no It^ss horror 
than the irrepressible and eccentric Abby Kelly.* 

There were not lacking men to enter the women's- 
rights movement with equal fervor, and these, with 
their coworkers of the other sex, labored incessantly 
by lecturing and by endeavoring to x^irticipate in all 
sorts of meetings where women were not usually 
in evidence, to emphasize their rights and demand 
equality. Some few aberrant members of this cru- 
siide adopted the doctrine of Free Love and pro- 
claimed a sort of logical anarchism in the relations 
of the sexes, making a stir out of all proportion to 
their numbers. Great notoriety was gained by a 
convention at Rutland, Vermont, on June 25, 1858, 
in which all varieties of reformers took part — aboli- 
tionists, spiritualists, woman-suffragists, and the like 
— and certain speakers made a public advocacy of 
the abolition of the marriage tie as a bar to human 
progress and the equality of the sexes.' 

Radicalism in religion was now actively advocated 
by a host of speakers, the most jirominent of whom 

'Harper, Susan B. Anthony, I., 57-205; Stanton, Anthony, 
Gage, Hist, of Wonmu SulJragc, I., chaps, vi.-viii., xiii., xiv. 
'A''. Y. Tribune, June 29, 1858. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 353 

was Theodore Parker, then at the height of his fame 
and influence in Boston, a man of passionate anti- 
slavery zeal and a genius for polemics of any kind. 
The craze for conventions, which made the life of 
the professional agitator a series of meetings with 
his fellow-reformers, showed itself in this field — for 
instance, in a convention held at Hartford, Connect- 
icut, in June, 1858. The object of this meeting, 
"for the purpose of freely canvassing the origin, 
authority and influence of the Jewish and Christian 
Scriptures," appeared so blasphemous to the con- 
servative that it was denounced by the press of the 
country as an abomination, and was mobbed by the 
students of a neighboring denominational college, 
results which served only to whet the zeal of the 
"Free thinkers," as they styled themselves.* 

The natural tendency was for these various re- 
forms to blend together, from the fact that those 
who were radically inclined in one direction were 
generally favorably disposed to reforms in all others. 
The woman- suffragist was likely to be an advocate 
of temperance, abolition, and free religion, so that 
when conservative people lumped the entire field of 
reform activity under the heading of "the isms," 
and spoke of the leaders as " the short-haired women 
and the long-haired men," there was a certain justi- 
fication. Susan B. Anthony, for instance, devoted 
herself almost equally to temperance, anti -slavery, 
and women's rights; Garrison, in the Liberator, 

' Garrisons, Garrison, TTI., 383. 



354 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

while especially interested in abolition, sympathized 
warmly with every other reforming movement and 
was a leader in the woman's -rights field. There 
were, of course, many persons, especially in the west, 
whose anti-slavery action was not the result of icon- 
oclastic radicalism, as was shown by the numerous 
"Christian Anti-Slavery Conventions" held in Ohio, 
Indiana, and elsewhere in 1850 and later, but the 
substantial unity of all reformers as radicals was the 
popular impression of the time. 

Besides this ultra-individualistic and rationalistic 
free thought, there sprang up certain social move- 
ments arising from a mystical or superstitious crav- 
ing. Millerism had had its day in the previous dec- 
ade, but spiritualism, founded in 1848, rapidly grew 
to conspicuous proportions and seemed to be filling 
the place of a distinct religious sect. Its adhe- 
rents, like all the other reformers, held coriyentions 
or conferences in numerous places, published spirit- 
ualistic papers, and claimed vaguely to number one 
or two millions of adherents.* The American rever- 
ence for congressional action was strikingly shown 
when, in 1854, the members of this sect presented a 
petition to the Senate, signed by fifteen thousand 
names, asking for the appointment of a commission 
to investigate the phenomena of "occult forces." 
Senator Shields, of Illinois, presented the memorial 
in a speech of some length, but in the debate which 
followed no senator proved so courageous as to de- 

' Podmore, Modern Spiritualism, 303. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 355 

fend the cause of table-tipping and spirit-rapping, 
and after many humorous and some contemptuous 
comments, and a facetious attempt to refer the me- 
morial to the committee on foreign affairs, it was 
allowed to drop. Spiritualism remained without the 
governmental sanction its adherents hoped to secure. 

Practical philanthropy went hand-in-hand with 
radical agitation. It was in these years that the 
great work of Dorothea Dix, in securing the reor- 
ganization and proper construction of asylums for 
the insane, was carried through. It comprised one 
almost tragic disappointment; for when, in 1854, 
after years of effort, Miss Dix finally succeeded in 
getting through Congress a bill granting ten million 
acres of public lands for the purpose of aiding the 
states to care for their insane. President Pierce 
vetoed the gift as unconstitutional on grounds of 
strictest state -rights doctrine. Nevertheless, the 
results accomplished by Miss Dix's campaign were 
epoch-making in the history of public charity, espe- 
cially in the south and west.* 

All these reforming and radical movements, it 
should be said in conclusion, found their outlet not 
only in special publications, but on the lecture plat- 
form, an institution then in its prime. Over the new 
railways into all parts of the country travelled the 
foremost literary men and the most eloquent re- 
formers of the time, spreading the gospel of intel- 
lectual enlightenment in all quarters. Such men as 
* Tiffany, Dorothea Dix, 135-200, 307-330. 



356 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S50 

Holmes, Lowell, Emerson, and George William Cur- 
tis were active alongside of prominent clergymen like 
Henry Ward Beecher, temperance reformers, aboli- 
tionists, and whatever other speakers local " Lyce- 
ums" were ready to listen to. In this way the pub- 
lic, not yet absorbed in magazine reading, found its 
intellectual stimulus, and the national sentiment 
and new culture of the first half of the nineteenth 
century its expression. 

Side by side with the culmination of the national 
expression in government, politics, and intellectual 
life, began the development of social habits due to 
the new industrialism of the decade — the railways, 
the telegraph, and the influx of California gold. 
The new business-man came on the stage, his whole 
nature concentrated in competitive production or 
distribution. He filled the cities, accompanied the 
railroads into all corners of the north, and turned 
into wealth-getting the keenness and vigor of an 
imexhausted race. Then, too, appeared the new 
figure of "Labor," of the man who expected always 
to live as wage-earner, and joined with his fellows 
to protect his interests. The first national unions 
of local labor organizations all date from this time, 
and the first great railway strike was that on the 
Erie road in 1857.* 

Still another new social element strikingly appar- 
ent in this decade was that of the Irish and German 
immigrants who came to this country, trained in 
* Ely, Labor Movement, 57-60. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 357 

no school of Jacksonian democracy, but bringing 
the traditions of a defiant and bitter revolutionary 
republicanism. The presence of large numbers of 
brawling, ignorant, clannish Irish, not long enough 
escaped from sordid poverty to have any conception 
of American ideals, made an indelible impression 
upon Americans at this time. Scarcely less unwel- 
come to the conservative was the spectacle-wearing, 
beer-drinking, Sunday-despising German peasant or 
petty townsman. The Know - Nothing movement 
sprang from a real sense of alarm and dislike felt 
by dwellers in city and country towards these alien 
arrivals. The literature and the periodicals of the 
fifties are filled with allusions to the Irish and Ger- 
mans, betraying the mingled tolerance and aversion 
felt towards their habits. The types of the Irishman 
and the German, fixed in American humor and on 
the American stage, take their origin from these 
years. The Germans, however, brought with them a 
higher grade of education and culture, and from the 
start the more educated among them rose rapidly 
to positions of prominence in politics and society. 

Now all these new types and social elements were 
cast into a rapidly changing world. The extension 
of railways and telegraphs to cover the north and 
penetrate the south introduced the factor of speed 
into business to a degree never experienced before. 
It became worth while to hurry when competition 
was possible, not only from near at hand but from a 
distance. Speculation offered glittering chances of 

24 



358 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

wealth, to be gained in a few years where formerly 
half a lifetime would have been inadequate. The 
California gold craze simply exaggerated the current 
conviction that the day had come when it was pos- 
sible for any one to acquire riches quickly. The 
time was at hand when American society was to be 
transformed. 

Already, in these years, observers noted the de- 
velopment of a pleasure-seeking class. The new 
wealth had to be sj^cnt, and the American world of 
the years before 1850 had not been called upon to 
create fashionable amusements.* Those who had 
leisure found no athletic, hunting, or rural traditions 
to fall back upon, except in the south, where, indeed, 
the newly rich were not so often found. Baseball, 
soon to be the national game, was scarcely heard of, 
and the first intercollegiate boat-races appeared only 
in 1852. Yachting was known in the harbors and 
along the coasts, but was not the sport of any large 
numbers. The winning of the Queen's Cup by the 
America, in 1851, marked an epoch in international 
racing, but it was not as yet the object of wide- 
spread interest. It was a continual comment of for- 
eign observers and domestic critics that Americans 
did not know how to play or exercise, and in con- 
sequence were dyspeptic, physically weak, and ner- 
vously irritable.^ 

"Society" had to find diversion in dancing, eat- 

» Rhodes, United Siaies, III., 80. 

' See evidence collected in ibid., III., 66. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 359 

ing, drinking, smoking, the theatre and opera, and 
the national sport of horse-trotting, with its accom- 
panying betting. Even the great "resorts" which 
appeared at this time — Newport, Saratoga, Sharon 
Springs — ^with their immense hotels, existed simply 
for the purpose, according to observers, of enabling 
people to herd together and drink, smoke, flirt, and 
dance the more easily.* Of course, this was at the 
same time arousing a genuine love for the beauties of 
wild nature, and the public which read Starr King's 
poetic descriptions of the White Hills, in 1859, was in- 
spired by the same feelings which have since turned 
American society into the country and the wilderness 
every summer and autumn. Still, it was an era of 
bad taste in Europe in things social, and the influ- 
ence of the court of Napoleon III. was stronger with 
American fashionable society than was the example 
of the staider court of Victoria and Albert. 

It was a common observation that display and at- 
tempts at individual luxury preceded public comfort. 
The cities of the north grew greatly in size, but they 
continued to be poorly paved and lighted and ill-sup- 
plied with water. Street-cars, however, in this dec- 
ade first began to replace the slow-moving omnibuses 
hitherto customary, and their growth was rapid. 

The altered conditions of American life were re- 
flected in the newspaper press of the country. 

* Rhodes, United States, III., 75-82 ; Curtis, Lotus-Eating, 105- 
123, 166-176; Harper's Mag., department called " Easy Chair," 
1857, 1858. 



36o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

Hitherto the chief reason for newspapers had been 
to direct political activity; but now this function 
was to a large degree superseded by the task of 
furnishing commercial information to business-men 
and farmers. Already the zeal for promptness and 
priority of news made possible by the railway and 
telegraph, and appreciated in a hurrying commu- 
nity, had been introduced into the newspaper world 
by Bennett and the New York Herald. Although the 
paper whose standing depended upon its news and 
its advertisements and not upon its editorial page 
was in existence, the term " news" had not yet been 
extended to include all discoverable local items, 
trivial as well as significant. That phase of jour- 
nalism was still in the future. 

The editorial page, however, still held an impor- 
tant place, particularly in an epoch of such political 
excitement, and the leading editors of the great city 
dailies and weeklies were men of a prominence and 
weight not enjoyed by their successors. Greeley, of 
the Tribune ; Raymond, of the Times ; Bryant, of 
the Evening Post, in New York; Bowles, of the 
Springfield Republican ; Medill, of the Chicago Tri- 
bune, and their fellows, made the ante-bellum press 
a real power in the political world. The Washington 
correspondent, also, held a position of greater influ- 
ence then than later, notably such men as Pike, of 
the Tribune, and Simonton, of the Times} Among 
these journalists the most influential, without doubt, 

* Yindson, Journalism, 431, 540, 618. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 361 

was Greeley. Eccentric in person, a curious com- 
pound of shrewdness and vanity in temperament, he 
was gifted with a power of expression in terse, vivid 
English, marked by a downright earnestness of anti- 
slavery feeling which made his editorials and letters 
more popular than the utterances of any other single 
man. The Tribune was the political Bible of anti- 
slavery Whigs, and, later, of Republicans throughout 
New York and the middle west. 

A striking result of the greater intensity of the 
new industrial life, together with the lack of physical 
health, was the growth of excitability in the Ameri- 
cans of the time. Waves of popular frenzy were no 
new thing, for they had been known since the Stamp 
Act, but at no time were they so prevalent as in these 
years, and they were now accompanied by popular 
crazes of a non-political character to an extent which 
filled conservative people with bewilderment. In 
1850- 1855 the temperance movement swept the 
country in the Maine-law agitation ; then came the 
anti-Nebraska fever, followed by the Know-Nothing 
riots and excitement, the Kansas crusade, and the 
Lecompton struggle, each of which rose, raged, and 
declined from exhaustion. In 1857 the financial 
panic swept like a fire across the land, and it was 
followed in 1858 by a wide-spread religious revival, 
the last one to arouse all sections of the north. 

Hitherto unknown manifestations of excitement 
were called forth by the visits of interesting foreign- 
ers in these years, notably by Jenny Lind, in 1850, 



362 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

and Kossuth, in 1 8 5 2 . These did not rest ultimately 
upon any especial musical susceptibility in Ameri- 
cans nor on any absorbing sympathy with Htmgary, 
but on the love of being excited, of uniting with one's 
neighbors in experiencing a thrill in a fashion later 
commonly termed hysterical. Ampere, who saw the 
Kossuth excitement, remarked: "Je vois que dans 
cette ivresse, entrait pour beaucoup ce besoin d'ex- 
citation, de manifestations bruyantes, qui est le seul 
amusement vif de la multitude dans un pays ou 
Ton ne s 'amuse guere. Ce vacarme est sans conse- 
quence et sans danger." ^ 

These years were times of ferment — ^with the con- 
tinued radicalism of the past, the flowering of the 
literary genius of the land, the sweep of popular 
crazes, and above and around all the zest and fas- 
cination of the new industrial and agricultural out- 
look. In spite of the Kansas question, the slavery 
problem was not the only nor even the most impor- 
tant subject in popular interest, except for brief 
periods ; and it was never regarded at any time as 
anything but an unpleasant interruption except by 
the professed agitators. Nevertheless, in these years 
the attitude of the northern people towards the 
south imderwent a distinct change. In 1850 the 
great majority of voters were not ready to let their 
dislike of slavery draw them into any permanent an- 
tagonism towards the south, and they were eager to 
welcome any fair compromise. But by i860 the re- 

* AmpSre, Promenade en Amerique, II., 53. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 363 

peal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas strug- 
gle, and the controversy over the Lecompton consti- 
tution had stirred up a deep sectional feeling, based 
on anger at what was considered the perfidy and 
aggressiveness of the south in seeking to establish 
slavery in free territory.^ 

This irritation had now hardened into a fixed pur- 
pose to force slavery to remain in the regions which 
it already occupied, and to eliminate pro-slavery 
men from their control of the central government. 
This feeling, it is clear, could not be considered 
aggressive, for the idea of interfering with slavery in 
the southern states was hardly entertained. It was 
rather defensive and sectional, directed against the 
encroachments of the "slave power," or, as it was 
frequently called, the "slaveocracy." The current 
northern feeling was that unless the south were 
checked it would insist on protection to its slaves, 
not only in the territories, but in the free states. 
It was widely, although erroneously, believed that 
Toombs had boasted that he would live to call the 
roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monu- 
ment, and the Dred Scott decision was looked upon 
as a step in the process of making slavery national. 

The people of the north did not like the slave- 
holders, did not understand them, and had no desire 
to do so. The peculiarities of the southern code of 
manners created a belief that they were a race of 

* For earlier phases of this subject, see Hart, Slavery and Abo- 
lition {Am. Nation, XVI.), chaps, xvi.-xix., xxi. 



364 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

faithless, blustering, cruel slave - drivers ; and the 
figure of a Henry Clay, once popular at the north, 
was hidden behind that of a "Border Ruffian." 
An influence of incalculable effect in establishing 
this opinion of slavery and slave -owners was the 
novel of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Published in 1852, 
it achieved an unparalleled success from the start, 
edition after edition being absorbed by a public gone 
wild over the humor and the tragedy of the work. 
Although based in every detail upon facts, it was 
not, as enraged southerners kept insisting, a fair 
representation of the slave system; but it was not 
intended so to be. It showed in literary guise the 
possibilities of horror and tragedy rooted in the in- 
stitution, and it fixed in the north, as no other one 
influence did, the popular ideal of slavery. In her 
astonishment at the popular enthusiasm, Mrs. Stowe 
wrote : " The success of what I have written has been 
so singular and so unexpected . . . that I scarce 
retain a self-consciousness and am constrained to 
look upon it all as the work of a Higher Power, who 
when he pleases, can accomplish his results by the 
feeblest instruments." * 

By i860 the institution of slavery had few de- 
fenders at the north, and some of the foremost Re- 
publicans, such as Lincoln and Seward, did not 
hesitate to express sentiments which a few years 
earlier would have been regarded as ultra-radical. 
Undoubtedly thousands now agreed v/itli them that 
' Stowe, Stowe, 166. 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 365 

the contest with slavery was an irreconcilable one, 
and must end eventually with its extinction; but 
the actual, technical abolitionists still remained few. 
The small group led by Garrison, Phillips, and others 
had taken the form of a sect, united by a creed 
and judging all others by their beliefs. This creed 
was a complete logical structure whose fundamentcd 
assumption was that slavery was a sin, and that the 
duty of every man was to do his utmost to destroy 
it. The feature upon which the abolitionists laid 
great weight, was getting rid of personal responsi- 
bility. "Our duty is first personal, in regard to 
ourselves," wrote Garrison. "We are to see to it 
that we make no truce with slavery either directly 
or by implication, . . . that our hands are clean and 
our consciences without condemnation," ^ This was 
done by bearing witness against it, refusing to obey 
any laws recognizing it, rejecting the authority of 
the federal government which recognized it, refusing 
fellowship with any slave-holder or any person who 
upheld slavery, and by advocating the separation of 
the free from the slave states. 

The programme of the ultra-abolitionists was with- 
out any relation to actual events, and could not, in 
the nature of things, attract ordinary people, hence 
they remained few in number, taking consolation, 
as every small sect must do, in a certain complacency 
over their own doings. Throughout the years 1850- 

' Ganisons, Garrison, III., 444; cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition 
{Am. Nation, XVI.), chap. xii. 



366 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S50 

i860 Ganison continued to criticise the course ol 
public affairs, mercilessly applying his standards of 
unbending abolitionism to every man and giving 
scant sympathy to even those hotly engaged on the 
northern side in the slavery controversy so long as 
they did not act from purely anti-slavery motives. 
The distrust which Chase felt towards Douglas, when 
he found him opposing the Lecompton constitution, 
Garrison and Phillips applied to Chase himself. Yet, 
although this attitude of unyielding radicalism did 
not win converts, the abolitionists did exercise a 
very great indirect influence, since their steady repe- 
tition of their one idea kept it before the public, and 
even their extravagances — such as the public burn- 
ing of the Constitution by Garrison, in 1854 — serv^ed 
to force home their detestation of the slave system 
and of the men who maintained it. Their idealiza- 
tion of the negro, whom they held to be equal in aU 
respects to the white man, found little sympathy in 
the north, but their hatred of the slave-owner struck 
a responsive note, and from their denunciations of 
the slave system undoubtedly grew the popular idea 
of slavery as always and everywhere monstrous and 
disgusting. 

The altered feelings of the north on the subject 
of "southern aggressions" showed themselves not 
only in the formation of the Republican party, but 
in numerous other ways equally exasperating to the 
south, as they were intended to be. The fugitive - 
slave law, at first reluctantly accepted, was later the 



i86o] NORTHERN FERMENT 367 

object of continual attack and obstruction from the 
northern people, moved j^artly by sympathy for 
the fugitives, but equally by a desire to thwart the 
pursuers. The Underground Railroad continued its 
activity with increased popular sympathy and as- 
sistance.^ Rescues or attempted rescues of slaves 
were numerous, among the most famous being the 
attack on a federal court-house, in May, 1854, by a 
Boston mob, in a vain attempt to free Anthony 
Bums, an arrested fugitive. The retiu-n of this pris- 
oner was carried out under protection of state and 
federal troops, in the presence of a groaning, hissing 
crowd, and in later years every Massachusetts agent 
in the rendition was relentlessly hunted from politi- 
cal life. In Wisconsin, the same year, occurred the 
Booth case, which has already been referred to,^ and 
in 1858 the so-called Oberlin - Wellington rescue, 
where a crowd of northern Ohio men, including a 
professor and students from Oberlin College, rescued 
a fugitive and were tried under the provisions of the 
act of 1850, until the vigorous interposition of the 
state authorities forced the federal government to 
drop the prosecution.^ 

In a still more aggravated form, this determina- 
tion to block the law in every way led to the enact- 
ment, by many states, of so-called " Personal Liberty 

* Siebert, Underground Railroad, 318-320, 342. 
2 See Smith, Parties and Slavery (Am. Nation, xviii.), chap. xiv. 
'Siebcrt, Underground Railroad, 327-336,' App. B; McDougal, 
Fugitive Slaves, 43-52, 124-128. 



368 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S50 

Laws." These statutes, most of which were passed 
after the Know - Nothing and Republican parties 
gained control, prohibited the use of jails to confine 
fugitives, forbade state judges or other officers to 
aid in their capture, authorized the issue of writs of 
habeas corpus in case of arrests of alleged fugitives, 
provided for a jury trial, sometimes ordered state 
attorneys to act as counsel for fugitives, and im- 
posed heavy fines and imprisonment upon any per- 
son kidnapping a free man.^ These laws certainly 
came near to nullifying the United States Constitu- 
tion, and their moral effect at the south was tremen- 
dous. They showed, as nothing else could, to what 
an extent sectional feeling had progressed, and an- 
nounced to the south that the fugitive - slave law 
could be executed only over the ojDposition of the 
northern people. 

By i860, therefore, the north, busily occupied Vv'ith 
industrial expansion of all kinds, with reforms and 
with intellectual ferments, was growing all the time 
more and more conscious of its hostility towards the 
south and of its own strength to render that hostility 
effective. 

'Johnston, "Personal Liberty Laws," in Lalor, Cyclopedia, 
III., 162; McDougal, Fugitive Slaves, 67-70; Parker, Personal 
Liberty Laws, 3-1^1 ; cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, 
XVL), chap. xix. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SECTIONALISM IN THE SOUTH 
(1850-1860) 

IN the years immediately preceding the Civil War, 
the characteristic civilization of the southern 
states reached its culmination, making of the slave- 
holding area a region with most of the features 
of a separate national consciousness, a community 
little affected by the industrial, intellectual, and 
emotional influences which were transforming the 
north. 

The economic basis of southern society was now 
the culture of cotton, and, to a less degree, of corn, 
rice, and sugar, commodities which could be pro- 
duced with profit by slave labor. The railway ex- 
pansion of the south was mainly subsidiary to the 
agricultural industry, carrying cotton to the ports 
of export, and also bringing from the north those 
manufactured articles which the south was as un- 
able to produce in i860 as in the previous century. 
" Whence come your axes, hoes, scythes ?" asked Orr, 
of South Carolina. " Yes, even your plows, harrows, 
rakes, ax and auger handles? Your furniture, car- 



370 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

pets, calicos, and muslins? The cradle that rocks 
your infant to sweet slumbers — the top your boy 
spins — the doll your little girl caresses — the clothes 
your children wear — the books from w^hich they are 
educated ... all are imported into South Carolina." ^ 
With negroes as a large part of the real capital 
of the south, and the plantation as the normal form 
of investment, the social and economiic structure of 
the slave states was almost impervious to the forces 
which were beginning to prevail in the north. The 
planter aristocracy remained at the top of the scale, 
its numbers small in comparison with the total popu- 
lation. In i860 it was estimated that there were 
only 384,753 slave-holding individuals, and of these 
less than one-half had more than five slaves and less 
than one- tenth as many as twenty.^ Capital tended 
as always to concentrate in few hands. Associated 
with these were the professional classes and the 
financial element, which, although far less important 
than the similar class at the north, played an active 
part in the southern economy. Below these came 
the body of southern whites, some of whom were 
engaged in the relatively few railways, steamers, 
mills, and factories of the south, but most of whom 
were small farmers with a status shading off into 
that of the steady accompaniment of slavery, the 
"poor white trash." But few of the slave states re- 
ceived any of the flood of German and Irish immi- 

' Charleston Courier, April 18, 1855. 
' Ingle, Southern Side-Lights, 363. 



iS6o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 371 

gration, since the lack of opportunity for free labor 
kept all such out of the cotton belt.* 

Nothing had taken place since the eighteenth cen- 
tury to alter the ideals of the southerners, except 
the fact that in the interior and Gulf states the 
aristocracy of family was replaced by a more flexible 
aristocracy of wealth.^ Although many large slave- 
owners were of humble origin, there yet existed 
within the planter class a sort of democratic fellow- 
ship, interrupted only by a few conservatives of the 
type of the Virginian who observed that "Whigs 
knew each other by the instincts of gentlemen." ^ 

Social and political leadership rarely passed from 
the hands of this upper class. A career like that of 
Andrew Johnson, who, from being an illiterate tailor, 
rose to be twice elected governor of Tennessee and 
later senator, was altogether exceptional ; and such 
a book as Helper's Impending Crisis was an anom- 
aly.^ Helper's thesis was that slavery depressed the 
poor whites and enabled the slave-owners to profit 
at their expense ; but whatever his hopes may have 
been of turning the non-slave-holding whites against 
the planter capitalists, he could not arouse them. 
Politics were an affair of leaders, who, when they 
differed, appealed to the voters, but did not consti- 
tute a class of office-brokers or machine organizers. 

' For details, cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, 
XVI.), chap. V. 2 Brown, Lower South, 45. 

^ Wise, End of an Era, 58. 
* Helper, Impending Crisis, 123-132, 149-154. 



372 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

(jThe southern gentleman, in the years just before 
the war, stood as the product of an aristocratic soci- 
ety, a figure almost without a parallel at the north. 
No wealthy manufacturers, railway promoters, cap- 
italists, or business-men challenged his supremacy, 
and the whole of southern society took its tone 
from this master. The ideals of the southern gen- 
tleman were simple, and to the northerner scarcely 
comprehensible.* His interests were few — cotton, 
negroes, family life, neighborhood affairs, and poli- 
tics. Education, at one of the not very flourishing 
southern colleges or at one of the larger northern 
universities, was confined to a small number. The 
personal ideal of the southerner was usually ex- 
pressed by the word "chivalry," a term comprising 
the virtues of gallantry towards women, courtesy to 
inferiors, hospitality and generosity towards friends, 
personal courage, and a sensitive "honor." 

The code of the duel was still a sacred part of 
southern social standards, not usually defended in 
public, but practically exacted in private, and based 
upon ideals of "honor" not easily understood out- 
side the society wh ch upheld them. Jennings Wise, 
for instance, the son of Governor Wise, of Virginia, 
a man of "unaffected piety, naturalness, sincerity, 
and gentleness, a lover of children and so amiable 
that he never had a personal quarrel," felt himself 
obliged, when editing the Richmond Enquirer, to 
force a duel upon any one who criticised his father. 

• Ingle, Soutltern Side-Lights, 29-32, 39-46. 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM ^n 

The result was no less than eight "hostile encoiin- 
ters" in two years, which the pubhc regarded as 
"natural and manly, evincing chivalry of the high- 
est order." ^ Sensitiveness to insult obliged the 
southerner to seek " satisfaction " of some kind ; and 
when he encountered men who recognized no code, 
but answered him with equal harshness, he felt 
obliged to employ personal violence, as in the case of 
Brooks and Sumner. This affair was strictly in ac- 
cord with southern standards, which approved instant 
vindication of injured "honor" by violence of any 
kind.^ Murderous threats and shooting affrays, 
which struck a northerner with horror, were of every- 
day occurrence in many southern communities ; and 
nothing stood more in the way of mutual compre- 
hension. The refusal of the northerners to fight 
when challenged made the whole section appear to 
southerners as cowardly and ignoble, while the unre- 
strained anger and ready violence of the southerner 
impressed northern men as the brutality of a partly 
civilized bully. Yet the home life and domestic 
tenderness and courtesy of the same fiery southern- 
ers who fought duels and uttered threats were of a 
charm unimagined by their northern opponents, but 
proved by the testimony of innimierable witnesses.^ 
Upon such a society the intellectual upheaval of 

' Wise, End of an Era, 90. 

* Von Hoist, United States, V., 331 ; Olmsted, int. to Gladstone, 
Englishman in Kansas, pp. xviii., xix. 

* Trent, int. to Olmsted, 5ea6oari 5toto (ed. of 1904), L.p.xxv. ; 
Page, Old South, 143. 

25 



/ 



374 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

the time made little or no impression. The business 
hustle and hurry of the new industrial life faded 
away as one entered the land of cotton, and so did 
the other features of northern life of the decade. 
Orthodoxy in religion prevailed undisturbed at the 
south, and "isms" and reforms remained unknown 
there except when brought by such energetic in- 
vaders as Dorothea Dix, whose crusade for asylums 
for the insane stands almost alone in the south of 
that time. Spiritualism, communism, radicalism, 
all failed to grow in the south, and were almost as 
abhorrent to the planters as abolitionism itself. The 
crazes which swept the north stirred slight echoes 
there. Jenny Lind and Kossuth found less ecstatic 
hearers, the Maine law failed to convulse politics, and 
the Know-Nothing movement lacked spectacular 
features. Upon their superior sanity the southern 
journals often congratulated their readers in lan- 
guage not to be matched outside the Tory utterances 
of Europe. "In the North," said the Richmond 
Enquirer, " every village has its press and its lecture 
room, and each lecturer and editor, unchecked by a 
healthy public opinion, opens up for discussion all 
the received dogmas of faith. . . . The North fifty 
years ago was eminently conservative. Then it was 
well to send Southern youth to her colleges. She is 
now the land of infidelities and superstitions and is 
not to be trusted with the education of our sons 
and daughters."* 

' Richmond Enquirer, January i, 1856. 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 375 

As a consequence, the south entered but feebly 
into the Hterary renaissance of the times, and in 
years when the New England school of writers was in 
its prime still struggled along with but the tenderest 
shoots of a local literature. Except William Gilmore 
Simms, whose prolific genius was still pouring out 
poems, romances, dramas, political articles, and mis- 
cellaneous productions, there was scarcely a southern 
writer known beyond a narrow circle. Southern 
magazines found it almost impossible to live, for the 
southern people were never great readers, and, when 
they subscribed to any periodical, commonly took 
Putnam's, Harper's, or the North American Review. 
Only the Southern Literary Messenger managed, with 
difficulty, to survive until the Civil War. 

As the growing divergence between the sections 
progressed, indignation was often expressed at the 
dependence of the south upon "abolitionist" publi- 
cations, and fervent appeals were made for the sup- 
port of distinctly southern writers and periodicals. 
" So long as we use such works as Wayland's Moral 
Science,'' wrote one irritated southerner, "and the 
abolitionist geographies, readers, and histories, over- 
running as they do with all sorts of slanders, carica- 
tures and blood-thirsty sentiments, let us never com- 
plain of their use of that transitory romance {Uncle 
Tom's Cabin]. They seek to array our children by 
false ideas against the established ordinances of 
God." * But declamation and resolutions were fu- 

* De Bow's Review, May, 1856, p. 661. 



376 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

tile to create a literature, and the south con- 
tinued to neglect its own authors and publish- 
ers.* 

The only change brought by the years 1 850-1 860 
to the southern states was an intensification of their 
sense of common interests and conunon ideals re- 
sulting from the incessant slavery controversy. That 
southern sectionalism which existed from the forma- 
tion of the Union now developed into something 
approaching closely to a real national consciousness, 
evinced in innumerable ways; and the term "The 
South" was as familiar in congressional and other 
speeches as " The United States " or the name of any 
single state, and carried an equal political signifi- 
cance. One form assimied by this new self-con- 
sciousness was that of a sectional "patriotism" and 
exaltation at the expense of the antagonistic north. 
Over southern society, people, manners, intelligence, 
courage, religious life, scenery, natural resources, and 
future prospects flowed an tmceasing current of 
praise. "We expect true refinement of mind in 
America," said one writer, " to be born and nurtured 
and to exist chiefly in the Southern portions of the 
Union. . . . Th e pri de of the North is in her dollars_ 
and cents, her factories and her ships. . . . The pride 
of the South is in her sons, in their nobleness of soul, 
their true gentility, honor, and manliness. . . . Both 

'Trent, Simms, 102, 128, 163; Trent, Southern Writers, 65; 
Page, Old South, 57; Miner, The Southern Lit. Messenger; De 
Bow's Review, XXIV., 173 (January, 1858). 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 3 77 

have their gratification, the one in her dollars the 
other in her sons." ^ 

Beneath all this self-assertion, however, existed a 
growing feeling of uneasiness which became strongly- 
felt in this decade. Al though De B ow, in his period- 
ical devo ted to southern economic and social inter- ^J^ 
-JM ^i argued t'hia,'FTTi e''sou'th was more prosperous 
thari_the_north, and a chonTs'of writers and speakers 
echoed the comfortable belief,^ the fact remained 
that the north was undeniably outstripping the 
south in numbers, industrial wealth, and political 
power. In the effort to arouse the community to a 
sense of its danger, and to discover remedies for 
southern backwardness, an interesting series of 
Southern Commercial Conventions was held, with 
annual sessions after 1852. These met in various 
cities, and debated such projects as a southern 
Pacific railroad and a direct southern steamship 
line to Europe, besides many other subjects of in- 
terest to planters. As the Kansas struggle pro- 
gressed, these meetings reflected more and more 
the political passions of the time, until, by i860, 
they became the debating-ground of southern radi- 
cals and conservatives, and the time of the sessions 
was taken up with the consideration of resolutions 
on the slave-trade and the slavery situation in gen- 
eral. In 1859 the radicals went so far as to carry 
through resolutions evidently intended to pave the 

^Southern Lit. Messeni^er, XX., 295 (May, 1854). 
* Cleveland, Stephens, 98. 



378 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

way for the transformation of the Commercial Con- 
vention into a permanent body, with members 
elected by the people, capable of taking political 
action/ In a practical way these meetings accom- 
plished nothing: something more than resolutions 
and fiery speeches was needed to enable the south 
to keep pace with the north. 

The movement for southward expansion, already 
referred to, was another result of the southern 
uneasiness over the growing preponderance of the 
north. The popularity of Walker, the filibuster, the 
demand for Cuba, and the attempts to aid Cuban 
insurrection, all were based on a feeling that only 
by an increase of territory suitable for slave economy 
could the south hold its own. "Would I perform 
my duty to God, to my country, to humanity and 
to civil freedom," asked Quitman, of Mississippi, 
"were I to refuse to devote a portion of my life to 
such a cause? . . . Our destiny is intertwined with 
that of Cuba. If slave institutions perish there they 
will perish here. . . . Our government can not or will 
not act. We must do it as individuals. "^ 

Another scheme for aiding the south was the re- 
opening of the slave-trade, an idea which rapidly 
gained favor in these years; for in no other way 
could the planters be relieved from the high price 
of slaves, the population of the south be increased, 

> De Bow's Review, 1853-1859, especially June, 1858, and July, 
1859. 

^Claiborne, Quitman, II., 207. 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 379 

and the economic future be made certain. The agi- 
tation began after 1850, the advocates of the re- 
opening of the trade taking high ground. A writer 
in De Bow's Review classed it " among those mysteries 
which, however repulsive to fastidious eyes, are yet, 
in the hands of God, the instruments of Man's 
progress." * The full argument was thus stated by 
E. A. Pollard, in 1857: "There are many minds 
among us firmly convinced that the Slave Trade is al- 
most the only possible measure, the last resource to 
arrest the decline of the South in the Union. They 
see that it would develope resources which have 
slept for the great want of labor, that it would in- 
crease the area of cultivation in the South six times 
what it is now, that it would create a demand for 
land and raise its price, so as to compensate the 
planter for the depreciation of the slaves, that it 
would a dmit the poor white man to the advantages 
of our social s\'stcin, that it would give him clearer 
mlei-csts in the country he loves now only from 
sirnple^patriotism ; that it would strengthen the 
'pecuHcix Jnstiiution ; that it would strengthen our 
representation in Congress, and that it would revive 
and engender public spirit in the South." ^ 

The demand was first made publicly by Governor 
Adams, of South Carolina, in 1856; and on various 
occasions committees of the South Carolina and 
Louisiana legislatures reported in favor of reopening 

• De Boiu's Review, December, 1854. 
^Charleston Mercury, February 17, 1857. 



38o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

the trade. In 1856 the project was brought before 
the Southern Commercial Convention and was de- 
feated, 18 to 67; but three years later the vote 
changed to 49 to 19 in its favor. The subject was also 
brought up in Congress in 1859, although the south, 
as a whole, was not ready to seek such radical ac- 
tion. But the high prices of negroes and the eager- 
ness of southerners for added slave labor led to a 
great growth of slave - smuggling in these years. 
Scores of slave-ships sailed from New York to the 
coast of Africa, and himdreds of negroes were land- 
ed in the southern states. The federal government 
was apathetic, and the laws seemed impossible of 
execution. In forty cases tried in the ten years 
preceding 1856, only one sentence was obtained, the 
southern juries almost uniformly refusing to con- 
vict. In 1859 the yacht Wanderer landed over three 
hundred negroes in Georgia, but in spite of the wide- 
spread knowledge of the affair no one was pun- 
ished.* 

The desire for the reopening of the slave-trade 
was part of a significant change which took place in 
southern sentiment in these years regarding the in- 
stitution of slavery. For twenty years southerners 
had undergone the unremitting and merciless at- 
tacks of abolitionists upon the slave system, and 
upon themselves for not instantly abandoning it; 
and as time went on the chorus of censure steadily 

* DuBois, Slave-Trade, 180 et seq.; Spears, Slave-Trade, 195 
et seq. 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 381 

increased, until it seemed to them as though the en- 
tire north was united in holding them guilty in the 
sight of God and man. Yet the two beliefs most 
deeply rooted in the mind of every southerner were, 
that he was an honorable, Christian gentleman, and 
that the slave system was absolutely necessary to 
his prosperity. Some positive answer was necessary 
"to the abuse by the an ti- slavery critics. It was not 
enough to retort with anger and contempt, for the 
European world stood committed to the northern side, 
and its opinion must be dealt with. Accordingly, in 
this decade there was developed a new political and 
social philosophy, supplanting all previous half de- 
fences and apologies, which boldly asserted that 
slavery was a positive good, the only sure basis for 
society, religion, and the family, while liberty was a 
danger to the human race.^ 

The new defenders of slavery swept away at the 
start the old, traditional doctrines of the Revolution, 
denied the natural equality of man or the existence 
of any natural right to liberty, and argued that only 
when two unequal races existed together, with the 
inferior in subjection to the superior, was true hap- 
piness possible to either and the highest civilization 
attainable by the superior race. To prove this they 
pointed to the miserable condition of the laboring 
classes in manufacturing countries, insisting with 
never-tiring emphasis that the slaves were infinite- 

' Merriam, American Political Theory, 227-246; cf. Hart, Sla- 
very and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), chap. x. 



382 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

ly better off. "Those countries," said one writer, 
"must retain their form of society and try to make 
the best of it. But we contend that ours is better. 
We assert that in all countries and at all times there 
must be a class of hewers of wood and drawers of 
water who must always of necessity be the sub- 
stratum of society. We affinn that it is best for 
all that this class should be formed of a race upon 
whom God himself has placed a mark of physical 
and mental inferiority." ^ This doctrine had been 
elaborated before 1850, by Calhoun and others, but 
it now became the accepted creed of the defenders 
of slavery, proclaimed by clergymen, congressmen, 
and newspapers in the teeth of the Republicans. 

On the actual condition of the slaves in the years 
1850-1860, an opinion may safely be formed, for at 
no time was the institution subjected to more care- 
ful study. Travellers observed it continually, some- 
times laudatory in their remarks, of tener the reverse ; 
abolitionists amassed evidence of its atrocities, and 
defenders painted pictures of its idyllic sides. All 
other investigations were cast into the shade by the 
work of Frederick Law Olmsted, who published in 
this decade the results of extensive journeys under- 
taken by him in the slave states for the sake of 
seeing slavery as it was in the daily life of the peo- 
ple. Olmsted was no friendly critic of the " peculiar 
institution," and he acknowledged himself that his 
books were "too fault-finding"; but if allowance be 

^Southern Lit. Messenger, XXXVII., 93 (July, 1858). 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 383 

made for this personal element, the observations 
create such a picture of the slave-holding civilization 
as can be found nowhere else. The real economic 
failure under the apparent prosperity of slavery and 
the depressing effects of the system upon the whites 
were the lessons of the book. Gleaned from every 
sort of source, from planter, poor white, tavern 
loafer, slave, or free negro, the old south painted its 
own portrait in his pages.' 

The feeling of the southern people towards the 
north grew in these years into its final form. Before 
the Kansas-Nebraska excitement it was customary 
for all but the extreme followers of Calhoun to be- 
lieve that the abolitionists — by which was meant all 
who in any way attacked or criticised slavery — were 
in a small minority, and that the national feelings 
of the northern majority would maintain harmony. 
After the rise of the Republican party, it became the 
conviction of a majority of southerners that the 
north, as a whole, was fundamentally wrong in its 
view of southern institutions, and could not be relied 
upon to do justice. The self - defensive sentiment 
behind northern anti-slavery feeling was not grasjjed, 
and the course of politics since 1850 was regarded as 
an unprovoked series of aggressions upon southern 
rights and southern feelings. " We are arraigned 
day after day," said Davis in the Lecompton debate, 
"as the aggressive power. What southern senator, 
during this whole session, has attacked any portion 

• Trent, in Olmsted, Seaboard States (ed. of 1904), I., p. xxxiii. 



384 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

or any interest of the north? In what have we 
now, or ever, back to the earliest period of our his- 
tory, sought to deprive the north of any advantage 
it possessed ? . . . The whole charge is that we seek 
to extend our institutions into the common terri- 
tory of the United States. . . . You have made it 
a political war. We are on the defensive. How 
far are you to push us?" * 

Since, to the southern mind, slavery was right, 
common fairness required that it should have at 
least an equal share in the federal territories and 
that its supporters should not be proscribed ; hence 
the Free Soil and Republican programme was wholly 
unjust and unfair. Further, the duty of returning 
fugitive slaves was part of the common Constitution, 
and the refusal to do so, whether expressed by mobs, 
by "personal liberty laws," or by mere inertness, was 
equally unpardonable. Still further — and here lay 
the chief ground of offence in the people of the north 
— the inhabitants of the free states were no more 
qualified to judge of the rightfulness of slavery than 
were the slave - holders themselves, and their per- 
sistent hostility to the "peculiar institution" was an 
affront to the "honor" of the entire south. 

If northern injustice were to continue, there could 
be but one possible result — secession. Calhoun's 
spirit dominated southern thought after his death 
as it never had done during his lifetime ; his Disqui- 
sition on Government was studied in southern colleges 

' Cong. Globe, 35 Con^., i Sess.. 6ig. 



i86o] SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 385 

and became the political Bible of the younger men 
of the time, until the doctrine of the indivisible 
sovereignty of the separate states was an ingrained 
part of the southern creed.* If the states were 
sovereign, disunion would not be revolution, but a 
mere dissolution of partnership, and ought to involve 
no more trouble than making an equitable division 
of common property and common liabilities. No 
state, moreover, was bound to adhere to the partner- 
ship any longer than was profitable or honorable; 
and the other partners had no right whatever to 
object to its withdrawal, still less to prevent it. 

By 1859 the time was close at hand, in the opinion 
of hundreds of thousands of southern men, when the 
partnership of north and south would cease to be 
of further mutual profit. The north could not be 
driven into a course of justice by reason, and com- 
pulsion through commercial boycott, although often 
discussed, was felt to be inadequate. Moreover, as 
the years went on the sense of social repulsion be- 
tween southern aristocrats and northern "mechan- 
ics," existing since the foundation of the country, 
increased in bitterness until the planters of i860 
talked as if the "Yankee" were the incarnation of 
vulgarity and depravity. De Bow curtly defined 
"Yankees" as "that species of the human race who 
foster in their hearts, lying, hypocrisy, deceit and 
treason"; elsewhere he discovered the source of the 

' Merriam, Am. Political Theory, 278-283; McLaughlin, in 
Am. Htst. Rev., V., 484 (April, 1900). 



386 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

S(km';i1 (K\<jjiMUM-;u'\' of ihc north: "Tho Ixisis, fninic- 
w'ork aiul oonliH>lIiiig iiitliUMUx^ of Noiihcni soiiti- 
nuMitis I'uriUuiisiu — the olil Rouiullicail, ivbol refuse 
of ICiighuul which . . . has over been an unruly sect 
(^f Pharisees, . . . the worst bigots on eartli ami the 
nieaiu\st oi tyrants when I hey have the power to 
cxiM-eisi^ it. The)' ha\e never luul the slightest eon- 
cei>(ion of wliat eonslitutes true liberty anil are in- 
capable by iiabn\> of gixing ov receiving such." * 

Tlie undeniable ferment of the north in thought 
anil in refiM-ni, taking, as it iliil, many extravagant, 
although harmless sha]>es, made the section a]ipear 
in soul hern e>es reeking with iiTeligion, blasphemy, 
anil railicalism. Southern ilefeiulers were forever 
drawing comparisons between the "poverty, crime, 
inlideHly. anarchy and liceniiousness of Free Society 
and the ]>lcnty. morality, conservatism, good order 
and universal (.'hristian faith of Skive Society."" To 
the strictly orthodox send hern planters. New Kng- 
kuul seemed a land o\' abomination, and abolitionists 
a])])eareil bloody-minded fanatics, longing to cause 
negro insunwtion, with massacre ami unmention- 
able horrors. 

So matters stood in iSqc): nuitual misunderstaml- 
ing, nnitual dislike and contempt; on one side a 
hxed inir]>ose to exclude the other from control of 
the ftHlcral government; on the other an ciiually 
llxed purpose to secede it ousted, l^'or years the 

' Ih- In'ic's Kci'itw, Au.unj't. 1S57, July, 1S5S. 
^ Kklinumd i'^minircr, December 7, 1S55. 



i.S6oJ SOU'IMIICkN SI<:("n()NALISIVl 3.S7 

control li.'ul Ixx-n kc])!, in the li.mds of Ow. souMi hy 
a comhiiKLLion in the ranks of llic Dcniocr.'itjc ]);Lrly 
of iiorllKTH conservatives willi southern moderates; 
l)ut now this coah'tion seemed to be sliakcMi. U])oii 
the outeonu; of tlK; eU-etion of i.S()o hun;.^ tlie de- 
cision; in the minds of most southern leaders the 
result was already determined. The Union must 
come to an end. 



I 



CHAPTER XXII 

SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 
(1864-1865) 

A RENOWNED historian of the Civil War, after 
describing the colossal labors of the men in au- 
thority as it progressed, declares that one reading with 
care the official records finds it hard to understand 
how Lincoln and Stanton, in particular, were not 
crushed by the weight of responsibility, which came 
to its severest between May and September, 1864,* 
The Stanton of the records he finds in marked con- 
trast with the Stanton of tradition — a patient, tact- 
ful, forbearing, as well as resolute and indefatigable 
character, not the violent and harshly arbitrary 
man whom many have portrayed.' In these months 
the burden told heavily upon Lincoln: his boister- 
ous laugh, says his private secretary, was less fre- 
quent; the eye grew veiled through brooding over 
momentous subjects; he became reserved, and aged 
with great rapidity. There is a solemn contrast 
between two life-masks, one made in i860, the other 
in the spring of 1 865 ; the earlier face is that of a 

* Rhodes, United States, V., 237. 
' Gorham, Stanton, II., pt. viii. 



1864] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 389 

strong, healthy man, full of life and energy. The 
other is "so sad and peaceful in its definite repose 
that St. Gaudcns insisted at first it was a death- 
mask. The lines are set as if the living face, like 
the copy, had been in bronze; the nose is thin and 
lengthened by the emaciation of the cheeks; the 
mouth is fixed like that of an archaic statue — a look 
as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their 
worst without victory is on all the features: the 
whole expression is of unspeakable sadness and all- 
suffering strength." ^ 

As the year 1864 closed, for the president there 
was great relief. The victories made final success 
certain; the election, while continuing his power, 
assured him that he possessed overwhelmingly the 
confidence of the country. His immediate environ- 
ment had also become more congenial: he had sub- 
jected the vehement Stanton; he had no longer to 
bear the ill -nature of Chase; in the place of Bates 
there stood a warm personal friend. Speed. Indeed, 
but two of the secretaries of 1861, Seward and 
Welles, remained in the cabinet. In particular, Lin- 
coln's relations with the secretary of state were 
close and harmonious. If at first Seward depreciated 
the president, that disposition passed after a few 
months of intimacy, and he worked on loyally in his 
subordinate place. Any chagrin he may have felt 

* John Hay, in Century. XIII., 37 (November, i8go). The 
two masks lie together in the Lincoln case at the National 
Museum in Washington. 
26 



3 go SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

at not attaining the highest honor, he suppressed; 
and there is little evidence that he cherished any 
further ambition. As to foreign affairs, he de- 
clared in these days with truth that "things were 
going finely." Seward might honestly feel that his 
own courage and force had helped powerfully to the 
general success. It is pleasant to read his hearty 
appreciation of his great chief. In a speech after 
the election he said : ' ' Henceforth all men will come 
to see him as you and I have seen him — a true, 
loyal, patient, patriotic, and benevolent man. . . . 
Detraction will cease and Abraham Lincoln will 
take his place with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, 
and Franklin, among the benefactors of the country 
and of the human race." * 

In truth, in Europe things were now going well 
for the Union. As to the great powers, Russia was 
always friendly: France, in spite of the unfriendli- 
ness of Napoleon III., had not broken with us. In 
Mexico, Maximilian, after May, 1864, was personally 
engaged in establishing his dynasty, and seemed for 
the moment successful ; but already there were signs, 
both North and South, that the Monroe Doctrine 
was not forgotten, and would some day be vindi- 
cated. 

By the spring of 1865 all danger of European 
interference in our quarrel ceased. The Confederate 
agents were in the background, discouraged,^ while 

* Seward, Works, V., 514. 

* Callahan, DiploDtatic Relations of tlie Confed., chap. viii. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 391 

Charles Francis Adams enjoyed a consideration such 
as no previous American minister had reached. A 
different tone was heard in the utterances of states- 
men and men of letters. The voices of John Bright, 
W. E. Forster, and Richard Cobden more and more 
prevailed. At an earlier period Grote had been 
supercilious, Dickens unsympathetic, Carlyle roughly 
denunciatory, E. A. Freeman and Gladstone proph- 
ets of our disruption who were not saddened by what 
they foretold. But there were now wiser men, none 
more so than Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, always 
a friend to the Union, who showed, with candid 
recognition of the merit of the vanquished, his 
strong sympathy with the victors. The best Eng- 
lish opinion is expressed in one of his letters, March 
12, 1865, in which he declares that the Confederates 
have certainly shown the power of an aristocracy to 
command and direct the energies of the millions; 
"Englishmen may feel proud of the prowess of the 
southern army, in which there was not that large 
mixture of Celtic and German blood found on the 
Northern side." He expressed confidence in the 
rapidity with which the wounds would be healed, 
and believed that the discipline would bring about 
in the people of the United States habits of subordi- 
nation to central authority, which they needed: he 
expected the large national debt to strengthen the 
Federal power, which formerly could not control the 
states; had the Union been dismembered, there 
would have been endless wars, more activity than 



392 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

ever in breeding slaves in America, a renewal of the 
African slave-trade, and a retarding of the future 
course of civilization. The result, therefore, Lyell 
deemed worth all the dreadful loss of blood and 
treasure. As to the internal condition of the states, 
he felt sure of their rapid and successful develop- 
ment. "Whatever it may be for the rich, I cer- 
tainly think that for the millions it is the happiest 
country in the world." * 

When the spring of 1865 opened, although a heavy 
shadow of death darkened almost every household, 
and a public debt of three billions gave rise to 
apprehension, the North was cheerful and buoyant. 
For the North was not only victorious, but prosper- 
ous • though her ocean carrying- trade was nearly de- 
stroyed through events which have been described, 
there was a heavy export and import business 
despite the high tariff. Legitimate trade with the 
South was resumed, and intercommerce was ex- 
traordinarily active. While there was no large in- 
crease of railroads during the war period, in 1865 
38,078 miles existed in the North, almost all in good 
order and fully employed.^ Symptoms of the spirit 
of enterprise in railroad building were an act of 
1862 for the construction of the Union Pacific and 
Central Pacific railroads; and consolidations were 
beginning in the eastern lines. As regards appli- 
ances, the air-brake, vestibuled trains, dining-cars, 

'Letter to T. S. Spedding, Mrs. Lyell, Sir C. Lyell, 11., 397. 
^Am. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 742. 



1 86s] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 393 

and palatial compartment-cars were undreamed of; 
high speed could be maintained only at great risk; 
roads were commonly single- tracked, and the strap- 
rail had not entirely disappeared. But the railroad 
stood fully developed as a powerful instrumentality, 
already superseding the canal, the wonder of the 
preceding generation, and promoting transit and 
traffic to an extent never before loiown. While the 
land was thus crossed and recrossed, the internal 
waters, the Great Lakes, and the navigable streams 
abounded in sailing and steam craft. 

The requirements of the time caused these rapidly 
developing facilities to be taxed to their utmost. 
The condition of the farmers in the war period from 
the first was good. In 1861 the crops were heavy, 
with a strong European demand.* Though the ex- 
ports of food stufifs dropped off, the vast requirements 
of the war immediately strengthened the market: 
there was quick and good sale for every crop and 
animal which the farmer could produce. Manufact- 
ures were no less stimulated : had ships been plenty 
and Europe clamorous, nothing could have been 
spared for export, for forge and loom were quite 
absorbed in satisfying the home needs. The laborer 
fared worse than the farmer and manufacturer. 
While wages rose during the war, till in 1865 they 
stood in the ratio of 183 as compared with 100 in 
1 861: prices rose far more, being 217 at the end as 
compared with 100 at the beginning, a law working 

' Schouler, United States, VI., 327. 



394 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

here which economists have noted/ House-rents, 
too, though advancing, kept no pace with the price 
of food and clothes. 

The natural resources of the country were ex- 
ploited as never before. The northwestern forests 
fell quite too rapidly; petroleum, made available in 
1859, underwent an extraordinary development in 
the sixties. The gold discoveries of 1849 in Cali- 
fornia were followed by finds of the same metal in 
Colorado in 1858 and in Montana in 1861. Mean- 
time, in 1859, silver was found in Nevada; in the 
same period became known the stores of copper and 
iron in the region south of Lake Superior. The 
country was not so busy in the camp as to be un- 
able to make prize of this newiy revealed wealth. 

In the stimulation of the processes of life, a quick 
utilizing took place of inventions lately wrought 
out, or now for the first time announced. McCor- 
mick's reaper of 1834, Elias Howe's sewing-machine 
of 1846, Croodyear's vulcanized rubber of 1839, the 
daguerreotype of 1839, the Hoe rotary press of 1847, 
the electric telegraph of 1835 — all these were im- 
proved and made widely available, as could hardly 
have been the case among quieter conditions ; while 
in devising and perfecting breech-loaders, repea ting- 
arms, and rifled bores, ingenious men were very 
active. In 1841, at the Massachusetts General 
Hospital, ether had first been used as an anaesthetic 
by Morton; what beneficent possibilities were in- 

' Taussig, in Yak: Review, II., 244 (November, 1895). 



i86i] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 395 

volved in this discovery became fully evident in 
the field-hospitals of both armies. 

Religion grew more earnest in these years. The 
Protestant denominations, large and small, though 
divided in the political dispute, lost no vigor. The 
zeal of the ministers and congregations grew fervent. 
The men recruited the armies and made sacrifices 
at home; while the women, using such agencies as 
the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, gave prac- 
tical expression to their devotedness. The Catholics 
were not behind, sending out a multitiide of our best 
soldiers and sailors, while patriotically active at 
home. Religious activity pervaded, too, the camps ; 
each regiment had its chaplain, usually a worthy 
man, whose ministrations were earnest and met a 
response sincere and wide-spread. 

As to education, in the North the common school 
was universal, though sometimes lacking appliances 
and skilled teachers.^ In the country districts it 
was often open only for short terms; and the 
teachers — farmers' sons or daughters with small 
training — were not the best. But things were im- 
proving. Horace Mann died in 1859, a self-sacri- 
ficing enthusiast whose writings and labors were 
having a marked effect. Normal schools, well 
established in New England, and fast making their 
way farther west, were fixing new standards of 
instruction and management, and effort was made 

' Mayo, History oj Common Schools (U. S. Bureau of Education, 
in preparation). 



396 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1862 

to profit by the experience of other lands. In the 
cities were high schools, sometimes open to girls, 
who, however, usually found a chance for nothing 
but superficial training. For higher education, de- 
nominational colleges abounded, rarely largely at- 
tended, usually struggling with poverty, and often 
esteeming orthodoxy of belief to be more important 
than sound and broad learning. Of universities only 
Harvard and Yale had the four faculties of divinity, 
law, medicine, and science, in addition to the aca- 
demic course; and neither had more than five hun- 
dred and fifty students.* 

Nevertheless, a new spirit was abroad ; the elective 
system was making its way; endowments were be- 
coming more liberal; and a beginning had been 
made of the system of state universities which at 
the present time crown so impressively our public 
educational system. Among these new institutions 
the University of Michigan had an honorable pre- 
eminence. Since their support came from public 
funds, it was manifestly unfair that the advantages 
offered, too costly to be duplicated, should be en- 
joyed by only half the youth. Hence the co-educa- 
tion of the sexes, which had been successfully tried 
in several places, notably at Oberlin, Ohio, was 
generally adopted among state universities, that of 
Iowa leading the way. In 1862 Congress made 

* Schouler, United States, VI., 2^6; for earlier conditions of 
education, see Hart, Slavery and Abolition {Am. Nation, XVI.). 
chap. ii. 



i862] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 397 

possible the establishment in each state of a college 
of agriculture and the mechanic arts: these, com- 
bined as they usually were with the state universi- 
ties, imparted strength and made certain for all 
who desired it an education thoroughly practical. 
In the pressure of the war the higher institutions 
were much affected. At the West it sometimes hap- 
pened that they were closed, the students, led by 
their teachers, departing in companies to the front ; * 
where they remained open the attendance fell off, 
the spirited young men finding study difficult in 
the prevailing martial excitement. J. W. Sill, a brave 
young general killed at Murfreesboro, J. J. Reynolds, 
a good commander of a division, J. L. Chamberlain, 
J. A. Garfield, J. M. Schofield, and many more offi- 
cers of distinction, were by profession teachers. 

At the end of the war the impression was general 
that extravagance and corruption prevailed to an 
extraordinary extent; but a survey from this dis- 
tance may give assurance that the evils were not 
excessive or inexplicable. Many became suddenly 
rich, for the newly opened mines, petroleum fields, 
the vast government contracts, gold gambling, the 
chances for speculation afforded by fluctuating 
prices, gave unusual opportunity to the adroit and 
rapacious. The money made easily was often spent 
unwisely. Lavishness was manifest in houses, equi- 
pages, and apparel, of women no less than men. But 
conscience was active, and societies were forrhed for 

* Cox, Military [Reminiscences, I., 33. 



398 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [iS6i 

the discouragement of luxury, the spirit prevailing 
finding expression in Julia Ward Howe's 

"Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, 
To deck our girls for gay delights! 
The crimson flower of battle blooms, 
The solemn marches fill the nights. 

" "Weave but the flag whose bars to-day 
Drooped hea\'3'' o'er our early dead, 
And homely garments, coarse and gray. 
For orphans that must earn their bread!" * 

In the transactions of the government involving 
enormous amounts some corruption was inevitable, 
but it was resisted manfully, the fighters often 
imagining a depth and extent of depravity which 
did not exist. A congressional committee in 1863, 
of w^hich Senator James W. Grimes, of Iowa, was 
chairman, made an appalling report as to waste and 
peculation in the management of the army and 
na\-y;- and Roscoe Conkling, of New York, in a 
speech of April 24, 1866, fiercely criticised the pro- 
vost-marshal-general, J. B. Fry. When the statistics 
were prepared and studied, the charges of Grimes 
proved overdrawn. In the vast business of the 
department of the paymaster-general, B. W. Bryce, 
it was found that from July i, 1861, to October 31, 
1865, $1,029,239,000 had been disbursed — the steals 
amounting to less than half a million, the expense 

* Julia Ward Howe, From Sunset Ridge, 5. 
'Salter, Grimes, 229 et seq. 



1 86s] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 399 

of disbursement to $6,429,600, the aggregate being 
less than seven-tenths of one per cent, of the amount 
disbursed.* In the department of the quartermas- 
ter-general, Montgomery C. Meigs, the amount ap- 
propriated was about $1 ,200,000,000, and the showing 
was equally good, the business being in fact a model 
of efficient administration,^ As to the department 
of the provost - marshal - general, Fry replied con- 
vincingly to his accuser. In the country at large 
the bounty and stibstitute brokers, who became 
numerous towards the end of the war, were generally 
bad men, and Fry had favored their suppression. 
Fry's vindication may be regarded as conclusive.^ 

It is enough to confute the charge that wholesale 
corruption prevailed in the management of these 
tremendous responsibilities to recall the names of 
the men who stood as heads: Lincoln, Stanton, 
Chase, Fessenden, Welles, and his assistant, G. V. 
Fox, Grant, Meigs, Ingalls, Fry — the country has 
never had in great positions men of higher ability 
and integrity. That some trace of carelessness and 
unfaithfulness should occur in the conduct of such 
affairs was inevitable in view of human limitations, 
but the need for apology is small indeed in present- 
ing the story of these mighty labors. 

Side by side with these men in official station may 
properly be mentioned citizens in private station, 

* War Records, Serial No. 126, p. 204. 

^ Ibid., p. 254. 

^ J. B. Fry, Conkling aiid Blainc-Fry Controversy in 1866. 



400 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

who without pay rendered indispensable services — 
men like J. M. Forbes^ and Amos A. Lawrence, of 
Boston, who from pure patriotism were government 
agents, or became bounty-brokers in the hope of 
redeeming a work thought necessary but so often 
made discreditable, and scattered broadcast patriotic 
literature; Henry Whitne}^ Bellows and Frederick 
Law Olmstead, of New York, unpaid heads and 
organizers of the Sanitary Commission ; and James 
E. Yeatman, of St. Louis, well portrayed by Winston 
Churchill, in The Crisis, as "Mr. Brinsmade." 

The years of the Civil War fell well within the 
golden period of American literature, which reflects 
vividly the wrath, the anxieties, the sorrow, and 
the exultation of the time. In American letters the 
humorist is never absent, and the newspapers of 
the war-time sparkled with witty effusions that, 
rough though they sometimes were, demolished evils 
more effectively than attacks sober and labored. 
"Artemus Ward" (Charles F. Browne), who was 
willing to sacrifice on the altar of his country all 
his wife's male relatives, would deserve notice if for 
no other reason than that he was a source of much 
refreshment to Lincoln. It is a strange bracketing, 
but the "High-handed Outrage in Utiky" will go 
down the ages with the Emancipation Proclamation.^ 
The president took great delight also in the deliver- 
ances of "Petroleum V. Nasby" (D. R. Locke), as 

' Mrs. Plughcs, John Murray Forbes, chaps, viii.-xviii. 
2 Hosmer, Appeal to Arms {Am. Nation, XX.). 215. 



i865] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 401 

did also James Russell Lowell, who declared that 
"Hosea Biglow" might be spared from the field 
since a satirist of such vigor had entered it. The 
letters from the "Confedrit X Rodes" told powerful- 
ly against the Copperheadism of the West. Not far 
behind these was Robert H. Newell, "Orpheus C. 
Kerr" (Office Seeker), who, as the name suggests, 
found other political abuses than disloyalty, and 
sometimes hit out in other fields than politics. An 
effort being made to obtain a new national hymn, 
"Orpheus C. Kerr" published "The Rejected Nation- 
al Hymns," the alleged contributions to that end of 
our better-known poets. His parody of transcenden- 
tal phraseology was thought amusing forty years ago. 

FROM R— LPH W— LDO EM— R— N 

"Source immaterial of material naught, — 

Focus of light infinitesim.al, 
Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought, 

Of which the normal man is decimal, — • 
Refract, with prism immortal, from thy stars 

To the stars blent, incipient, in our flag. 
The beam translucent, neutrifying death, — 

And raise to immortality the rag!" 

Often brilliant and genuinely poetic, also, were the 
poems of John G. Saxe, a Democrat. 

In a different class were J. G. Holland, Bayard 
Taylor, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, strong and 
loyal workers for the Union and for freedom, al- 
though the latter certainly had rendered her most 
memorable service in the preliminary years. Of the 



402 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

great pulpit and platform orators, Henry Ward 
Beecher gave much help in England as well as at 
home; while Thomas Starr King, according to the 
belief of some, saved California to the Union. 
Robert Collyer in Chicago, Phillips Brooks in 
Philadelphia, E. H. Chapin in New York, were 
constant in their zeal. The eloquence of Wendell 
Phillips, on the other hand, tended rather to embar- 
rass than assist. William Lloyd Garrison felt that 
with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation 
his work was accomplished, and retired from the fore- 
ground. The utterance of these days which espe- 
cially possesses the hearts of men is the address at 
Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, of Abraham Lincoln. 

A few ballads and lyrics took deep hold of the 
people, their lines becoming household words. Such 
were the "Fight in Mobile Bay," of H. H. Brownell, 
"Sheridan's Ride," by T. Buchanan Read, and 
Julia Ward Howe's " Battle Hymn of the Republic." 
Of fiction there was nothing more noteworthy than 
Edward Everett Hale's Man Withotit a Country, 
which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of Decem- 
ber, 1863. This weird and touching story, wellnigh 
perfect as an example of literary art, written for the 
temporary purpose of affecting sentiment at the 
time when Vallandigham was a candidate for gov- 
ernor of Ohio, deepened sensibly northern patriotism 
in general, and ever since has been an inspiring 
object-lesson for Americans. 

As to our great writers, scientists, and intellectual 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 403 

leaders, most of whom were in the fulness of strength 
in the war period, some specimens of their declarations 
may well close this chapter. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
perhaps the chief of all, died in 1864, apparently not 
much concerned as to the success or failure of the 
government. While consul at Liverpool, some years 
before the war, he wrote to his friend, Horatio Bridge: 
"At present we have no Country. . . . The States are 
too various and too extended to form really one 
country. New England is really quite as large a 
lump of earth as my heart can take in. Don't let 
Frank Pierce see the above or he would turn me 
out of office, late in the day as it is, I have no 
kmdred with or leaning towards the abolitionists," * 
He was touched by the uprising in 1861, but only 
for a moment, February 14, 1862, he writes: 
"Frank Pierce came here and spent a night. . . . 
He is bigoted to the Union, and sees nothing but 
ruin without it; whereas I (if we can only put the 
boundary far enough south) should not much regret 
an ultimate separation." ^ 

In this indifference, Hawthorne stood alone among 
his compeers. The poets were all fervently loyal. 
The uncombative nature of Longfellow withheld him 
from fiery expressions, but he watched anxiously the 
alternations of the struggle, now depressed, now re- 
joicing — with an earnest recognition of the nobility 
of such things as Lincoln's Gettysburg address.' 

• Woodberry, Hawthonie, 2S1. ^ Ibid., 284. 

'S. Longfellow, H. W. Longfellovj, II , 395. 



404 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES (1861 

He was a close friend of Charles Sumner, who 
always sought Longfellow when he could be absent 
from the Senate ; to give comfort to that strenuous 
champion was good service, had Longfellow done 
nothing more. Holmes, both in verse and prose 
was always spirited and outspoken, in his lighter 
vein hitting the enemy and the backward patriot 
at home with sharp ridicule, but most impressive 
perhaps in the hymns which he wrote in times of 
special stress. Whittier was strong, aggressive, 
upon occasion denunciatory, emancipation natu- 
rally kindling his spirit; "Barbara Frietchie" is a 
chivalrous acknowledgment of an opponent's virtue. 
Bryant, with lyre for the most part laid aside, some- 
times overimpatient at the slow progress of freedom, 
nevertheless made the New York Evening Post a 
source of inspiration. 

John Lothrop Motley, minister at Vienna, made a 
good forecast of events when he said, January 27, 
1864: "I have settled down into a comfortable 
faith that this current year is to be the last of 
military operations on a large scale. The future will 
be more really prosperous than the past has ever 
been; for the volcano above which we have been 
living in a fool's paradise of forty years, dancing 
and singing and imagining ourselves going ahead, 
will have done its worst, and spent itself, I trust, 
forever." ' 

Emerson, just after the second election of Lin- 

' To his mother, John Lothrop Motley, CorrespoiideiKe, III., 3. 



i86s] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 405 

coin, congratulated his countrymen, "that a great 
portion of mankind dwelling in the United States 
have given their decision in unmistakable terms, 
that a nation cannot be trifled with, but involves 
interests so dear and so vast that its unity shall be 
held by force against the forcible attempt to break 
it. What gives commanding weight to this decision 
is, that it has been made by the people sobered by 
the calamity of the war. They protest in arms 
against the levity of any small or any numerous 
minority of citizens or States, to proceed by stealth 
or by violence to dispart a country." ^ 

Agassiz pushed in the darkest days of the war, in 
1863, the foundation of a National Academy of 
Sciences and his own Museum of Comparative 
Zoology, alleging "that the moment of political 
danger may be that in which the firm foundations 
for the intellectual strength of a country may be 
laid." In proof he cited the founding, immediately 
after the prostration of Prussia, in 1806, of the 
University of Berlin, by the advice of Fichte, the 
philosopher, "which has made Berlin the intel- 
lectual centre of Germany." ^ But while thus de- 
voted to science, Agassiz was not indifferent to the 
welfare of his adopted country. He wrote to an 
English friend, August 30, 1862: "I feel so thankful 
for your words of sympathy. It has been agonizing 
week after week to receive the English papers and 

' Cabot, R. W. Emerson, II., 610. 
27 * Mrs. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, 510. 



4o6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [iS6i 

to see there the noble devotion of the men of the 
North to their country and its Government, branded 
as the service of mercenaries. Your warm sympathy 
I needed the more, as it is almost the first friendly 
word I have received from England, and I began 
to question the humanity of your civilization." * 

Lowell was especially fervent and indefatigable in 
his patriotism. He wrote for the Atlantic Monthly 
the second series of the Biglow Papers, in which his 
pathos, humor, and invective were at their best, and 
applied marvellously to the support of the cause he 
loved. At the end of 1864 he greatly mourned the 
death of three noble nephews killed in battle. 

" Rat-tat-tat-tattle through the street 

I hear the drummers makin' riot, 
An' I set thinkin' of the feet 

That follered once and now are quiet. . . . 
'Tain't right to hev the young go fust 

All throbbin' full o' gifts and graces, 
Leavin' life's paupers, dry as dust, 

To try an' make b'lieve fill their places. 



My eyes cloud up for rain ; my mouth 

Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners 
I pity mothers, tu, down South, 

For all they sot among the scomers. 
I'd sooner take my chance to stan' 

At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 
Than at God's bar hoi' up a han' 

Ez drippin* red ez youm, Jeff Davis!" * 

' Mrs. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, 577. 
^Biglow Papers, second series, No. 10. 



1864] SPIRIT OF THE NORTH 407 

With Charles Eliot Norton, Lowell undertook the 
editorship of the North American Review, infusing 
into that long-established and respected publication 
a new life and loyalty. "Everything looks well," 
he writes to Motley, December 28, 1864. "I think 
our last election fairly legitimizes democracy for the 
first time. ... It was really a nobler thing than you 
can readily conceive so far away, for the opposition 
had appealed to every base element in human nature, 
and cunningly appealed too." ' 

* John Lothrop Motley, Correspondence, III., 69. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
(1864-1865) 

TAYLOR, one of our best authorities, declares 
that the generals at the head of the south- 
ern armies resigned all hope of success "after 
the campaign of 1864 had fully opened. . . . The 
commanders in the field whose work and position 
enabled them to estimate the situation, fought 
simply to afford statesmanship an opportunity to 
mitigate the sorrows of inevitable defeat."^ A Con- 
federate soldier of lower rank, George Cary Eggle- 
ston, asserts, too, "we all knew from the beginning of 
1864 that the war was hopeless." ^ Though that 
may have been the opinion of the army, they did 
not confess it to themselves, but, as we have seen, 
faced with great resolution the forces of the Union. 
The civil officials, too, made no sign of want of confi- 
dence in a good issue, and the tone of the Richmond 
press was bold: it gravely discussed in the fall of 
1864 how to treat the discomfited Yankees when 
the war is over. 

• Taylor, Destruction and Rcconstrtiction, 197. 
' Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 235. 



1S65] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 409 

No man in the Confederacy faced the situation 
with more courage than Jefferson Davis, and when 
in 1865 many whose hearts till then had been stout 
gave up hope, he worked on with unabated confi- 
dence and zeal. If the labors of Lincoln were great, 
those of Davis were no less arduous; but now while 
Lincoln was on the point of final victory, and the 
resources and confidence of a great people were 
poured out to him as the recognized chief agent in 
bringing about success, the cause which Davis up- 
held was failing fast, and condemnation more often 
than praise was visited upon him. 

While what the Confederate soldiers did in the 
field was as a rule well done, the military adminis- 
tration and commissariat were very defective. 
Since the advent of Moltke, military writers have 
had much to say about the importance to a fighting 
nation of a proper general staff;* such a body the 
southern army certainly had not — a want which 
was offset by a similar lack in the northern army. 
It must be admitted that Davis was a poor judge 
of men: he looked with disfavor upon officers of 
the merit of Beauregard and Joe Johnston, while 
he esteemed Braxton Bragg, adopting him as his 
adviser when Bragg stood discredited with all 
others. It must also be laid upon him that Colonel 
L. B. Northrop was retained as commissary-general. 
It is a Napoleonic maxim that an army moves upon 

' Henderson, Science of War, 69, 401; C. F. Adams, Hist. Soc. 
of Mass., Proceedings, series 2, xx., 159. 



4IO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

its belly; that it shall be fed is vital, but according 
to much testimony from southern men the manage- 
ment of the commissariat was execrable. The re- 
sources, so scanty as compared with those of the 
Union, were clumsily and wastefuUy handled, and 
red-tape strangled efficiency to a disastrous extent. 
Eggleston portrays in many pages the resulting 
hardships to the soldiers. Stationed in South Caro- 
lina, the force of which his battery was a part was 
in the midst of rice -fields, furnishing excellent 
food. It had been determined, however, to feed 
the army on bacon and flour, which must be brought 
hundreds of miles; the supply failing through bad- 
ness of transportation, there was no thought of 
having recourse to rice, but the troops were put on 
short rations, being thus made to hunger in the 
midst of plenty.^ 

In the first Bull Run campaign red-tape and bad 
judgment neglected to use the meat and grain of 
the valley of Virginia, close at hand, accessible and 
likely to fall soon into the hands of the enemy, but 
depended rather upon stores brought with cost and 
inconvenience from Richmond. So it was at the 
beginning; and far towards the end of the war, 
January 5, 1864, we find Lee writing to Northrop a 
letter in which his dissatisfaction with the commis- 
sariat is very apparent: no beef had been issued to 
the cavalry corps for eighteen months, and the 
suggestions made by the commissary for bettering 

* Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 204. 



i86s] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 411 

matters were disapproved.* It is, indeed, hard to 
see why Lee did not interfere to remedy evils which 
crippled him seriously ; but the inefficiency went on. 
In the department, too, of the provost- marshal - 
general, the trouble was as great. The system of 
guards, passports, and permits was in a high degree 
annoying to soldiers not only on furlough but on 
duty, giving rise to often-expressed wishes that Lee 
would take things into his own hands.^ 

The executive departments in general had many 
critics. That there was unwisdom in the treasury 
has been made plain :^ the postmaster-general could 
not regulate the mails; the secretaries of war and 
the navy were targets for abuse. Much of the dis- 
content was no doubt unreasonable, but from begin- 
ning to end Benjamin seems to have been the only 
cabinet officer who made his influence powerfully felt. 

The ability of the country, in fact, was in the 
field, and men could not remain in civil positions, 
even the highest, without loss of reputation. An 
able-bodied man away from the front, whether a 
clerk or a congressman, was liable to unpleasant 
reminders that he might be in a better place; and 
in this state of public opinion it came about that 
men inferior in energy and talent made up the mass 
in the legislatures and departments. Since the de- 
bates of the Confederate congress have been only 

^ Long, R. E. Lee, 637. 

2 Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 210, et seq. 

^ See Hosmer's Outcome of the Civil War, p. 19. 



412 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

partially preserved, its action has received little at- 
tention, but the popular view was that it was unduly 
subservient to Davis and played an unimportant 
part. "Congress seems to be doing little or noth- 
ing," writes J. B. Jones, January 7, 1865; "but 
before it adjourns it is supposed it will as usual pass 
the measure dictated by the President. How insig- 
nificant a legislative body becomes when it is not 
independent! The Confederate Congress will not 
live in history, for it never really existed at all ; but 
has always been merely a body of subservient men 
registering the decrees of the executive." * 

As to commerce, e?cternal and internal, while in 
the war-time the North lost its merchant-marine, 
the South never had a merchant-marine to lose: 
before the war the ships of the North and of foreign 
nations cared for her trade, and during the war the 
blockade-runners were usually of foreign construc- 
tion and ownership. As to internal commerce, 
nearly fifteen thousand miles of railroad existed in 
the seceding states in 1861;^ but notwithstanding 
the lack of a through line from Mobile to the north- 
eastward, almost no railroad building took place 
during the war. No forges, mills, and machine- 
shops existed adequate to keep the existing tracks 
and rolling-stock in order, much less to start new 
enterprises: the rigidity of the blockade barred out 
importations. Although throughout the war a se- 

^ Jones, Rebel War Clerk's Diary, II., 379. 
* Ant. Annual Cyclop., 1865, p. 742. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 413 

cret and illegitimate trade went on between North 
and South, connived at by the authorities on both 
sides, through which first and last much money- 
was made by individuals, yet no supplies came in 
which at all answered to the requirements of the 
South. The ordinary wear and tear of a railroad 
makes nepessary constant repairs and replacements, 
and the southern roads and their equipments were 
usually light and cheap: the traffic grew heavy 
with the transport of armie^ and their belongings, 
so that the natural -use was destructive. As the 
war progressed, the pressure from the Federal in- 
vaders constantly increased, until for hundreds of 
miles the communications, if not in hostile hands, 
were wrecked by raiding parties beyond the possi- 
bility of reconstruction. Wagon-roads, always poor, 
went more and more to ruin ; the navigable streams 
became useless through the destruction by the gun- 
boats of the craft that plied upon them. 

Hence, transportation, whether by sea or land, 
became a matter of the greatest difficulty. As early 
as the spring of 1863, Fremantle, who made a journey 
throughout the Confederacy, from Brownsville, 
Texas, to Gettysburg, makes plain the difficulties 
of travel everywhere.^ In the fall and winter of 
1864, when Sherman had penetrated Georgia and 
the Carolinas, people who sought to flee by the 
overtaxed trains often found it impossible. The 
graphic Mrs. Chesnut makes an amusing reference 

* Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, passim. 



414 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [i86i" 

to the trials of an over-stout lady of dignity and 
standing who was pushed and pulled through the 
small window of a car the doors to which were 
blocked by crowds.^ General Johnston, on his way 
in 1864 to take command against Sherman, was de- 
layed and endangered in his passage ; and Dick Tay- 
lor, sent to command the Department of the Lower 
South, found it scarcely possible, a little later, to 
cross the Mississippi: it must be done at night; 
his guides carried on their shoulders from its place 
of concealment to the river the small skiff, the best 
conveyance that could be found for a lieutenant- 
general : the horses swam alongside ; the party spoke 
in whispers, so that the attention of the close at 
hand Federal gun-boat might not be attracted.^ 
The soldiers of Sherman remember that in march- 
ing through Georgia they found food in abundance, 
and were angry because the prisoners at Anderson- 
ville were so near starving. The truth at the mo- 
ment was that the abundance of Georgia could not 
be got northward to the Confederate armies; it was 
equally difficult to send it southward to the pris- 
oners, who naturally to the Confederates were of 
secondary importance. The apparatus for equali- 
zation and distribution failed: for transit of every 
kind, the highways and the appliances, if not 
broken to pieces by violence, were ruined through 
wear and neglect. 

• Mrs. Chesnut, Diary from Dixie, 351. 
'Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, 197. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 415 

As to production, throughout the period until 
the territory was entirely overrun by Union armies, 
the South remained fruitful. While all the able- 
bodied white men from sixteen to seventy at last 
were in the camps, the negroes, under the direction 
of the old men and the women, tilled the planta- 
tions as before the war. The government made 
efforts, often successful, to promote the raising of 
a variety of provisions rather than cotton. If what 
was raised could have been got to market, and if 
when there transactions could have been assisted 
by a proper currency, the situation might not have 
been distressing. As to manufactures, we have seen 
the heroic efforts made by a people who had hereto- 
fore depended upon what they could import, to 
furnish for themselves clothes, shoes, tools, and 
machines.* On many a plantation, and often in the 
towns, homespun was woven and dyed butternut, 
leather was tanned and worked into foot-gear, 
straw plaited, baskets woven, and wooden- ware 
contrived, while rough carpentry and blacksmithing 
were applied to making what was indispensable. 
Thus life was maintained. The hardships of those 
forced to live on salaries were greater than those of 
farmers and planters, living in cities being not by 
any means as easy as in the country.^ 

Paper money became at last worth scarcely one 
per cent, of its face value, and in the disorganiza- 

^ See Hosmer's Outcome of the Civil War, chap. iv. 
2 Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 95. 



4i6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1861 

tion all proper relation of prices was lost, Eggle- 
ston bought in the same day coffee at forty dollars 
and tea at thirty dollars a pound; while a dinner 
cost twenty dollars, and a newspaper one dollar.* 
The value of money constantly fell, and the temp- 
tation to speculate prevailed widely. An article 
bought to-day was sure to bring more to-morrow, 
and the scrip, though felt to be worthless, somehow 
because it pretended to be money was held to be 
desirable. Speculators fell under suspicion, a fate 
shared at last by all who had to do with merchan- 
dising. The Confederate Congress, wliich enjoyed so 
little credit during its existence, perhaps did noth- 
ing which helped more towards its disrepute than 
the funding act of February 17, 1864, upon the 
principle ' ' that the best way to enhance the value 
of the currency was to depreciate it still further." 
The scheme of repudiation proved quite futile, and 
the condition grew worse to the end. The day be- 
fore Lee's surrender, a cavalry officer, offering a 
five-hundred-dollar note for a pair of boots priced 
at two hundred dollars, the store-keeper could not 
make the change, "Never mind," said the cava- 
lier, "I'll keep the boots anyhow. Keep the change. 
I never let a little matter of three hundred dollars 
stand in the way of a trade." ^ With flour selling 
at last at one thousand dollars a barrel, the cur- 
rency broke down. Foreigners, who sometimes 

' Egglcston, A Rebel's Recollections, chap. iv. 
^ Ibid., 92. 



1863] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 417 

came in on blockade-runners, and were able to af- 
ford to the people the rare sight of gold or silver 
coin, found no trouble in buying at prices near those 
prevailing before the war. United States green- 
backs, too, were eagerly taken at rates not far dif- 
ferent from those at the North, a practice which, 
as has been mentioned, the government sought to 
correct by statute.^ A general recourse was had at 
last to barter, everybody, so far as he could, paying 
"in kind" for what he purchased. 

Education at the South before the war, so far as 
it was cared for by a public system, was in a rudi- 
mentary stage. ^ The common school led a languish- 
ing life in a very few cities, and in vast regions the 
people were quite unprovided. Private academies 
and seminaries for well-to-do boys and girls existed 
in every southern state ; above this was an apparatus 
of denominational colleges, wide-spread and un- 
doubtedly useful; but it was a usual thing for the 
sons and daughters of the planters to seek the 
North or Europe for advantages which they could 
not find at home. At every centre of southern life 
were men and women highly accomplished, whose 
culture, however, was gained in distant schools, or 
from tutors and governesses brought from thence. 

At the appeal to arms, the colleges for men were 
in great part closed entirely : while the students went 
into the ranks, the teachers and heads also often 

1 See Hosmcr's Outcome of the Civil War, p. 21. 

2 Hart, Slavery and Abolition {Am. Nation, XVI.), 20 et seq. 



41 8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1S63 

entered the public service in various capacities. 
John and Joseph Leconte, as we have seen, when 
the University of South CaroHna was closed, directed 
laboratories and powder-factories. D. H. Hill and 
Stonewall Jackson, men trained at West Point, and 
many more who had been teachers, figured in the 
front of battle. For children, schools sometimes 
continued, though much inconvenienced and inter- 
rupted in the turmoil. A glimpse into the life of 
teachers of those days may be had in the follow- 
ing story. The Richmond Examiner, "a newspaper 
Ishmael," charged Mr. Sydney O. Owens, a teacher, 
with extortion; to which IVIr. Owens replied that 
while his charges were five or six times as high as 
in i860, "your shoemaker, carpenter, butcher, 
market-man, demand from twenty to thirty or forty 
times as much as in i860. Will you show me a 
civilian who is charging only six times the prices 
in i860, except the teacher only? As to the amass- 
ing of fortunes by teachers, make your calculations, 
sir, and you will find it an absurdity." ^ 

In religion, the South has always been more faith- 
ful to old doctrines than has the North. While 
several of her greatest men, like Jolin C. Calhoun, 
John Marshall, and Thomas Jeft'erson professed a 
very liberal faith, the people in general have 
not followed them. Wherever the Creole French 
and Spanish prevail, as in the Southwest and lower 
South, the Catholic church is zealously upheld. 

* Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 106. 



i86s] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 419 

In other regions Baptists, Methodists, and Presby- 
terians absorb the community, clinging fast to 
BibHcal land-marks and the sternest traditions of 
the founders. In the cities and among the great 
planter-class the Protestant Episcopal church, coeval 
in its establishment with the settlement of the 
country, has possessed an authority which though 
not formally admitted since colonial times, has re- 
mained scarcely less definite than that of the Church 
of England. As at the North, so at the South, the 
excitement of the war greatly stimulated religion. 

At home the churches were aglow, revival followed 
revival ; no regiment departed for the front without 
consecration; and in the camps a fire of devotion 
often prevailed not surpassed in history. The lead- 
ing characters of the period were men full of pious 
ardor. Scenes recorded in the life of Bishop Polk 
recall the enthusiasm of the crusades, and his en- 
vironment, when his strong personality had oppor- 
tunity to make impression, recalls the Templars and 
the Knights Hospitalers. Stonewall Jackson made 
his life as near as he could a perpetual prayer,* and 
he so powerfully swayed his troops that a cam- 
paign became almost a long-continued camp-meet- 
ing, interspersed with marches and battles. The re- 
ligion of Lee and Jefferson Davis was calmer, but, it 
may be believed, not less earnest and profound, 
St. Paul's Church, in Richmond, is a stately temple, 
and as a spot where the flower of the Confederacy 
* Hosmer, Appeal to Arms {Am. Nation, XX.), 139. 



420 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1863 

especially gathered, and whence many a leader 
slain in battle was carried to his grave, it has tragic 
and interesting associations. ,One contemplates to- 
day with reverence the places within its walls where 
each Sunday the president and chief -general of the 
Confederacy bent the knee, men sincere, able, and 
hard-striving, if misguided. 

In this time, at the South, the refined enjoyments 
which ordinarily adorn and afford relief to life, gave 
way to sterner things: music was mostly silent, 
except as employed for martial and religious incite- 
ment:^ art ceased to appeal: literature found few 
votaries, excepting that certain noble lyrics and 
ballads, like "Stonewall Jackson's Way," and the 
"High Tide at Gettysburg," showed that there were 
still poets. Few books were imported; still fewer 
written and published.^ Pamphlets abounded re- 
lating to one or another phase of the war: the 
religious warmth caused the issue of many tracts 
and sermons; each large town had its newspaper, 
those of the cities often conducted with ability and 
playing a great part in encouraging resistance. The 
straits to which printers were at last reduced were 
very grave; while ink and presses failed, paper, too, 
grew scarce until coarse wrapping and wall paper 
were used for want of anything better. 

» W. R. Whittlesey, List of Music of the South, i860 -1864 
(Library of Congress, in preparation) . 

^ H. A. Morrison, List of Confederate Documents and Books 
publisfwd in the Confederacy (Library of Congress, in preparation). 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH . . 421 

In struggles like the Civil War in America, it is 
no doubt usual and natural that the passion of the 
time should seize especially upon the more emo- 
tional sex. To say the least, the women of the 
North felt as keenly as the men the sentiment of 
loyalty; and at the South the women surpassed 
the men, if that were possible, in devotedness. 
The day went against them, and in the humilia- 
tions and injuries which came upon the South 
through the defeat, women especially suffered. It 
was their part to endure without the power to 
strike back; and when, at the close, the country 
was laid waste by invading armies, as witnesses 
and helpless victims in the inevitable desolation 
they had really a harder lot than the men, who 
at the front found a relief in the excitement of 
battle. Of course, in such a storm, good taste and 
delicacy were sometimes torn to shreds. The mani- 
festations of the women of New Orleans which 
provoked the "woman-order" of Butler,^ were in 
some instances not less rough and exasperating than 
the means taken to suppress them. When the 
Federal foragers appeared upon estates whose own- 
ers were absent fighting under Lee or Johnston, the 
wives, mothers, and daughters left behind could 
have no smiles and soft words for the intruders. 
The bitterest wrath flashed out as a matter of course, 
and wrath as bitter in the answer; and there was 
no weighing of words in accusation or retort. 

28 * Hosmer, Appeal to Arms (Am. Nation, XX. )i ii9- 



42 2 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1863 

A young woman of New Orleans, who was par- 
ticularly obnoxious through her demonstrations 
and activity in thwarting the plans of the victors, 
framed upon her wall, as her "diploma," a note 
wherein, over the signature B. F. Butler, it was 
recorded that "the black-eyed Miss B. is an incor- 
rigible little devil whom even prison-fare won't 
tame." ^ At a plantation a Federal colonel, in the 
parlor, uninvited but aiming to be polite, asked the 
gentle-mannered daughter of the house to play. 
She declined, upon which the colonel seated himself 
at the instrument; thereupon the girl, seizing a 
hatchet, severed with rapid blows the piano chords. 
"It is my piano, and it shall not give you a mo- 
ment's pleasure." ^ Eggleston declares that he 
"never knew a reconstructed vSouthern woman," 
and it is very plain even now that while the men 
often look back calmly on this war, the injuries still 
rankle in the hearts of the women. 

Yet after forty years the embers burn low: even 
their ancient foes may well pay tribute to the spirit, 
fortitude, and self-sacrifice of the women of the 
Confederacy. The suggestion publicly made by one 
of them late in the war, that all the southern women 
should cut off their hair and sell it in Europe, where 
it was believed it might bring forty million dollars,^ 
would have been promptly and gladly carried out, 
could it have been managed. "There is not a 

* Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 66. ^ Ibid., 64. 

3 Hosmer, Appeal to Arms {Am. Nation, XX.), 68. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 423 

woman worthy of the name of Southerner who 
would not do it, if we could get it out of the country 
and bread or meat in return." ^ To furnish the 
nitre needed for powder, women dug up the earth 
of smoke-houses and tobacco-barns from which it 
might be extracted. They denied themselves meat 
and coffee that it might be sent to the army. An 
invalid stiff ering for proper food said: "I think it is 
a sin to eat anything that can be used for rations." 
In besieged towns, while nursing wotmded men in 
hospitals, the coolness of the women under fire was 
always remarkable.^ In a party of refugees driven 
out of Atlanta by the edict of Sherman in September, 
1864, a beautiful girl was seen to step from among 
her companions, and kneeling to kiss passionately 
the soil she was about to forsake.^ Such tales make 
up the record of the southern women of the war 
period: self-sacrifice could go no further. 

The behavior of the three and a half million 
negroes of the South during the Civil War is an 
interesting subject, and not altogether easy to 
understand. Unmistakably they rejoiced, in the 
main, in the freedom which the war brought; and 
5''et there were no attempts at insurrection. John 
Brown's effort at Harper's Ferry was based on 
a complete misapprehension,^ and perhaps at the 
South the misapprehension of the negro character 

* Mrs. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 341. 

* Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, chap. iii. 
' Miss Gay, Life in Dixie During the War, 141. 

* Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War {Am. Nation, XIX.), chap. v. 



424 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1863 

was scarcely less, for many believed that a slave 
uprising was not only possible but probable.* 

A popular song of the time, perhaps composed by 
negroes, runs: 

" Say, darkys, hab you seen de Massa, 
Wid de mioff stash on he face, 
Go down de road some time dis mornin' 

Like he gwine to leabe de place. 
He see de smoke way up de ribber, 

Whar de Lincum gun -boats lay; 
He took his hat and he leff berry sudden, 
An' I s'pose he's runned away. 
De Massa run, ha, ha! 

De darky stay, ho, ho! 
It mus' be now de kingdom's comin', 
An' de yar ob jubilo."^ 

Though in individual instances slaves ran away, 
the mass of negroes who came to the Federal armies 
came because the masters had abandoned the slaves. 
Hunter, commanding in the Sea Islands, declared 
that the refugees were the whites, the blacks hav- 
ing remained in their places ; and in general not 
only was there no effort by the negroes to subvert 
authority, but they did not flee from it, awaiting 
quietly in their cabins the impending deliverance. 

In a strange way, the negroes upheld both of the 
contending parties. The South could not have 
maintained itself in the field but for the service of 
the blacks at home, and in every kind of service 

» Rhodes, United States, V., 458. 

' American War Ballads, George Gary Eggleston, editor, II., 200. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 425 

but that of fighting-men at the front: the North 
was scarcely, if at all, less dependent upon the 
"grape-vine telegraph," upon the work of the 
contraband with the trains, on the fortifications — 
indeed, on the firing-line; and whether sersdng 
North or South, the blacks were equally patient, 
faithful, and effective. When Grant was advancing 
back of Vicksburg, in 1863, Mrs. Smedes relates that 
the negroes on her father's plantation remained 
devoted — showing indeed unusual affection, and con- 
cealing property so that the invaders could not 
find it.^ At the same time, it does not appear that 
they objected to those among their number who 
helped the Union: such departures no doubt were 
sometimes connived at by those who themselves 
stuck to the old order. Indeed, it may be believed 
that the same individuals, while on the one hand 
protecting and aiding their owners to whom with 
their warm hearts they felt attached, at another 
time helped the enemy, the Lincoln men, whose 
success meant for them emancipation. Some see 
in this behavior an oxlike stolidity — a temperament 
without initiative or power to organize, submissive, 
yielding dumbly to whatever strong white hand 
might for the moment be raised above them: some 
feel a sense of permanent gratitude to a race which 
was faithful under great temptation.^ 

' Mrs. Smedes, A SotUhern Planter, 209. 

'Grady, in Hart, Hist, told by Contemporaries, IV., 652, where 
the speech is quoted. 



426 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1863 

However it may be explained, it is certain that 
at the breaking up of the old relations of master 
and slave there was often mutual respect and 
affection. "They were our greatest comfort dur- 
ing the war," exclaims Mrs. Smedes. "They seem- 
ed to do better when they knew there was trouble 
in the white family." * Miss Gay relates an anec- 
dote of a slave at once naive and shrewd. She was 
one day surprised by a request from "King," a 
valuable slave, that she would sell him to "Mr. 
Johnson," a man whom King was known to dislike. 
When pressed to explain. King declared to Miss Gay 
and her mother a strong attachment, but said that 
he had been sent by Mr. Johnson to arrange the 
bargain which he. King, was anxious to conclude, 
a lot and store in Atlanta being offered in exchange. 
"I tell you what. Miss Polly, when this war is over 
none of us is going to belong to you. We'll all be 
free." By parting with him to Mr. Johnson, who 
did not see the near ending of slavery, as King ex- 
plained. Miss Polly might transfer the loss to him, 
while she possessed comfortably the Atlanta real 
estate. "He's a mighty mean man, and I want 
him to lose me." Thus King proposed, in the 
transaction, to enjoy a triple pleasure: while ob- 
taining his own freedom, to benefit the mistress 
whom he loved, and to satisfy his grudge against 
the man whom he disliked.^ 

* Mrs. Smedes, A SotUhcrn Planter, 196. 

^ Miss Gay, Life in Dixie During the War, 54 et seq. 



1865] SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 427 

Joseph Le Conte, an intelligent and conscientious 
owner of slaves, "felt distressingly the responsibility 
of their care; because I felt that those who owned 
slaves ought personally to manage them, as my 
father did. I could at any time during the twenty 
years previous to the war, have sold my land and 
negroes with great advantage to myself. This I 
refused to do out of a sense of responsibility for 
their welfare"; and he found that emancipation 
took from his shoulders a great burden, though he 
had fears as to the welfare of his people so suddenly 
manumitted.^ Eggleston describes the behavior of 
his negroes when the white men were all gone. Most 
of them desired freedom and quite understood the 
situation: they knew that they had only to assert 
themselves to make their freedom certain, but they 
remained faithful and affectionate. At the end of 
the war they acted with modesty and wisdom, a 
great, calm patience being their most universal char- 
acteristic.^ 

At the beginning of 1865 the seceding states con- 
tained a people overwhelmed by bereavements, 
by material ruin, by the disappointment of every 
hope. The face of things was very stern: famine 
was close at hand to many: in the field there was 
desperate battle, the ultimate result of which none 
could doubt. With one or two concrete examples 
let the story end. 

* Le Conte, Autobiography, 231. 

' Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections, 255 at seq. 



428 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1863 

The rebel war-clerk's entry for January 27, 1865, 
is: "Clear and coldest morning of the winter. Only 
the speculators have a supply of food and fuel. . . . 
My wood-house was broken into last night and 
two of the nine sticks of wood taken. Wood is 
selling at five dollars a stick. The thermometer at 
zero." * 

Mrs. Chesnut writes, January 17, 1865: "Hood 
came yesterday. He is staying at the Prestons' 
with Jack. They sent for us. What a heartfelt 
greeting he gave us! He can stand well enough 
without his crutch, but he does very slow walking. 
How plainly he spoke out dreadful words about 
'my defeat and discomfiture; my army destroyed, 
my losses.' Isabella said, 'Maybe you attempted 
the impossible,' and began one of her merriest 
stories. Jack Preston touched me on the arm and 
we slipped out. 'He did not hear a word she was 
saying. He had forgotten us all. Did you notice 
how he stared in the fire ? and the lurid spots which 
came out in his face, and the drops of perspiration 
that stood on his forehead?' 'Yes, he is going over 
some bitter scene. He sees Willie Preston with his 
heart shot away. He sees the panic at Nashville, 
and the dead on the battle-field at Franklin.' 
'That agony on his face comes again and again,' 
said tender-hearted Jack. ' I can't keep him out of 
those absent fits. " ' ^ 

' Jones, Rebel War Clerk's Diary, II., 400. 
^ Mrs. Chesnut, Diary from Dixie , 342 at seq. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATE OF THE 
NATION 

(1865-1869) 

THE financial and economic condition of the 
coiintry at the close of the year 1868 was well 
adapted to promote the era of prosperity which 
the apparent termination of intense political strife 
brought to every one's attention. Both the purely 
speculative and the really substantial elements of 
wealth-making progress were active. It was felt 
by many conservative men that the speculative 
factors were unduly prominent, and that sound 
development was impossible without important 
changes in the system of currency and national 
finance; but the prevailing tone of popular feeling 
after the election was optimistic, and this spirit was 
manifest in all phases of industrial activity. 

The readjustment of the national finances after 
the tension of the war had ceased was seriously im- 
peded by the political conflict about reconstruction. 
President Johnson had little interest in finance, and 
even less knowledge of the subject, and accordingly 
the policy of the administration was left entirely 



430 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1865 

to Secretary McCulloch.* The conditions with which 
he was called upon to deal were full of difficulties. 
The national debt amounted, October 31, 1865, to 
something over two billion eight hundred million 
dollars, in the great variety of forms which the stress 
of war had made inevitable,^ Legal-tender treasury 
notes to the amount of four hundred and twenty- 
eight million dollars were the chief element in the 
currency of the country, though there was much 
doubt as to whether their legal- tender quality would 
be held constitutional. Taxation was enormously 
high, and applied to practically every available sub- 
ject known to fiscal usage. The great problems be- 
fore the treasury and Congress, therefore, were the 
reorganization and speediest possible reduction of the 
debt, the re-establishment of a specie currency, and 
the curtailment of the revenue as rapidly as the 
waning military expenses would permit. 

Of these problems, the secretary believed that the 
elimination of the legal-tender notes (greenbacks) 
from the currency was of the first importance. All 
the insidious and far-reaching evils of an irredeem- 
able paper money he felt were already manifest in 
the United States: the notes were greatly depre- 
ciated, and prices of all commodities were corre- 
spondingly inflated; gold was at a premium, and 



* McCuUoch, Men and Measures, 377; John Sherman, Recol- 
lections, I., 384. 

^ Sec. of Treas., Report, in House Exec. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 
No. 3, p. 17; cf. Dewey, Financial Hist, of the U. S., 332. 



i866] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 431 

the daily fluctuations of this premium, operating on 
prices, brought imcertainty into every department 
of commerce and industry/ McCuUoch's belief in 
prompt and radical measures for getting back to a 
specie currency was widely shared by all classes of 
the people, and was acted upon by Congress. By 
a law of April 12, 1866, the secretary was authorized 
to retire the legal-tender notes at a limited rate, 
and under this authorization the amount outstanding 
was reduced during the next two years to three 
hundred and fifty-six million dollars. But during 
that time a variety of circumstances, among which 
the general hostility to Johnson's administration 
played no minor part,^ created violent opposition 
to the policy of the treasury, and by act of Feb- 
ruary 4, 1868, Congress prohibited any further con- 
traction of the currency.^ 

The original acquiescence in the movement for im- 
mediate resumption of specie payments was part 
and parcel of the feeling which won general support 
at the outset for Johnson's plan of restoring the 
states. Paper money, like disorganized states, was 
looked upon as an evil but unavoidable concomitant 
of the war, to be got rid of by prompt and summary 
action when the war had ceased. The reversal of 
policy as to resumption demonstrated that no more 

' The market price of gold during Johnson's administration 
ranged as follows, disregarding fractions: 1865, 128 to 234; 1866, 
124 to 167; 1867, 132 to 146; 1868, 132 to 150. 

' Cf . Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II., 332. 

' Dewey, Financial Hist, of the U. S., 340, 343. 



432 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1866 

in finance than in constitutional law and politics 
was the restoration of the status quo ante to be a 
simple operation after so long and desperate a civil 
conflict. 

Much of the opposition to McCulloch's policy was 
directed against his means and method, rather than 
against the end in view. Thus Senator John Sher- 
man, who was just assuming the high position in 
public finance which he was to occupy for a gen- 
eration, strongly condemned the immediate retire- 
ment of the greenbacks, though he professed the 
deepest interest in the resumption of specie pay- 
ments.^ His contention was that the country need- 
ed all the currency it had, and that sudden contrac- 
tion, with resultant decline of prices, would bring 
panic and general depression. This plea for abun- 
dant currency, taken up in a spirit different from 
Sherman's, was the basis of the "greenback" move- 
ment which was so prominent in the politics of 1868. 
If the temporary continuance of the legal-tenders 
was a good thing, their permanent continuance, it 
was argued, would be a better thing. If they had 
saved the nation from disruption by rebels, they 
would have equal power to save it from oppression 
by the speculators who controlled the precious 
metals. On these lines all the familiar sophistry 
was developed by which in many another place and 
generation the fiat of government has been proved 

* For his opinions and arguments, see John Shennan, Recol- 
lections, I., chap. xvii. 



i868] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 433 

a good substitute for intrinsic value as the basis for 
a currency/ 

More plausible and attractive to the popular ear 
than the abstract theory about standards of value 
were the arguments from certain concrete conditions 
in the national finances. While greenbacks must by 
law be accepted in all the transactions in which the 
mass of the people were concerned, gold could be de- 
manded by holders of some of the government bonds 
in payment of both interest and principal. It jarred 
on sensitive Democratic nerves that the man to 
whom fifty dollars was due as wages or as interest 
on a mortgage must take just that sum in green- 
backs, while he who received fifty dollars in interest 
on a government bond could at once transform his 
gold into seventy-five dollars in paper. Between 
bondholders and the rest of the people there seemed 
an iniquitous discrimination. Hence the demand 
of the Democratic platform of 1868: "One currency 
for the Government and the people, the laborer and 
the office holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the 
producer and the bondholder"; hence also the de- 
mand that in every case where the law of issue did 
not specifically provide for the payment of gold, the 
government's bonds should be redeemed in green- 
backs. 

With an unstable currency and disorganized 

* For a clever exposition of the {greenback theory in its com- 
pletest form, see speech of B. F. Butler, Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 
3 Sess., 303. 



434 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1869 

finances no commercial or industrial enterprise, how- 
ever legitimate, could escape an enormous burden 
of risk. Hence, throughout Johnson's term there 
was everywhere manifest that speculative spirit to 
which the hazards and vicissitudes of the war had 
given the original impulse. The spirit was in some 
measure fostered by the state of the national rev- 
enue system. Sooner or later a great reduction of 
the frightfully burdensome war taxes was to be an- 
ticipated. When it would come and what it would 
immediately affect were questions of vital import 
to industry and commerce. During Johnson's term 
the decrease of taxation that the condition of the 
treasury permitted was effected wholly in the in- 
ternal revenue, the receipts from this source falling 
from about three hundred and eleven million dollars 
in 1866, to one hundred and sixty million dollars in 
1869.* The facility with which this end was at- 
tained was in considerable measure due to the reso- 
lute hostility with which the ultra-protectionists of 
the majority of Congress met every suggestion of a 
reduction in the tariff. Secretary McCuUoch's an- 
ticipation of a reversion to the ante-bellum system 
of a purely revenue tariff ^ was but another of those 
conservative dreams, like immediate resumption of 
specie payments and immediate restoration of state- 
rights, that sprang from inability or unwillingness 

' Dewey, Financial Hist, of tlie U. S., 395. 
^ Sec. of Treas., Report, in House Exec. Docs., 40 Cong., 3 Sess., 
No. 2, p. xvi. 



1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 435 

to appreciate the far-reaching revolution which the 
war had effected in the whole national character 
and ideals. 

The speculative or gambling spirit in business was 
fostered not only by the general condition of the 
national finances, but also by certain notable facts 
in the development of natural resources just at this 
period. Petroleum in Pennsylvania, and the pre- 
cious metals in the Rocky Mountains, were at the 
height of their spectacular potency in the sudden 
making and unmaking of great fortunes. Both oil- 
wells and Rocky Mountain mines had become active 
elements in economic life just before the outbreak of 
the war, and a marked increase of this activity was 
coincident with the end of hostilities.^ Great num- 
bers of adventurous spirits, for whom the life most 
suited to their taste was ended by the disbandment 
of the army, found the best available substitute in 
the exciting pursuit of the fortune that came to him 
who could "strike oil," or in the hard and perilous 
search for gold among the moimtains of Montana 
and Idaho. 

Though the more risky and irregular phases of 
national progress were thus very conspicuous, the 
solid basis of prosperity was seen in the steady and 
substantial development of established agricultural 
and manufacturing enterprises. The great crops 
which were the chief index of economic welfare were 

* Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War {Am. Nation, XXI.), 255; 
Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Co., chap. i. 



436 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1868 

in 1867 and 1868 altogether satisfactory in bulk 
and value. Cotton, of course, was not yet nearly re- 
stored to the place it held before the war ; in view of 
the social and political conditions in the South, the 
commissioner of agriculture regarded it as remark- 
able that in 1868 the yield was half what it had 
been in 1859/ The value of the crop, owing to the 
very high price, was about the same as that in 1859, 
and cotton held its old place far in the lead of all 
our exports. Wheat and corn, the great food crops 
of the country, showed progress and prosperity in 
the granary of the nation — the Mississippi Valley. 
Very significant was the now pronounced movement 
westward of the centre of wheat production. The 
proportion of the crop that came from west of the 
Mississippi was, in 1859, but fourteen per cent, of 
the total; in 1868 it was thirty per cent.^ Min- 
nesota, Iowa, and California were responsible for 
most of this increase, and this fact stands in close 
relation to what proved to be the dominant factor 
in the era of enterprise which moved rapidly to its 
culmination after 1868, To keep pace with the 
development of resources, agricultural in the nearer 
and mineral in the farther West, and to bring the 
products of these regions into the markets of the 
older states, required an enormous expansion of 
facilities in transportation. The Northwest became 
the chief field of an extravagant railroad develop- 

* Commissioner of Agric. Report, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., 3. 
*Ihid., 17. 



1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 437 

ment, which affected all other parts of the country 
as well, and which influenced profoundly the prog- 
ress, both speculative and substantial, of the agri- 
cultural and the manufacturing industry of the na- 
tion. The mileage of new lines constructed in the 
whole country amounted, in 1865, to only 819, In 
1869 it was 4102; and in 1872 it reached the amaz- 
ing total of 7439.^ 

A determining stimulus to this form of enterprise 
was given by the progress and completion of the 
first transcontinental line. It was universally recog- 
nized that the Pacific railway was a work of the 
utmost political importance — that its utility in 
guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the Union 
far outweighed any consideration as to its financial 
success. Its construction, moreover, in part at a 
rate never before thought possible, involved en- 
gineering and labor problems of great magnitude 
and complexity, the solution of which excited wide- 
spread public interest. With good reason, there- 
fore, the progress of the work from year to year was 
followed with keen attention. The Union Pacific 
builders, working westward from Omaha, having 
only 40 miles finished at the end of 1865, added 
some 250 miles in each of the next two years, and 
then, in 1868, with a great burst of energy, added 
425 miles, and placed themselves within 125 miles 
of the end of their line. The Central Pacific, work- 
ing from Sacramento eastward, made but slow prog- 

' U. S. Census of 1880, Transportation, 290. 
29 



438 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1868 

ress till the Sierra Nevada had been surmounted; 
but then, in 1868, added 363 miles to the record, 
leaving 186 to bring it to the junction-point. On 
May 10, 1869, the meeting of the lines at Promontory- 
Point, near Ogden, Utah, was effected with elabo- 
rate ceremony, and the event was signalized by 
justifiable jubilation all over the land from Boston 
to San Francisco.^ 

The glamour of romance and adventure that hung 
over the process of carrying a railroad line through 
1775 miles of desert country, overrun by supposedly 
dangerous animals and unquestionably dangerous 
men, veiled in great measure many sordid features of 
the enterprise, which were destined later to make its 
name one of ill-repute. To insure the construction 
of the road. Congress enlisted private enterprise by 
heavy subsidies. For the main line, which was to run 
exclusively through territories of the United States, 
from Omaha to the California boimdary, a corpora- 
tion was created — the Union Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany — to which was given : (i) a right of way through 
the public domain; (2) twenty sections of land along- 
side each mile of road; (3) a loan of bonds of the 
United States to an amount not in excess of fifty 
million dollars, secured by a second mortgage on the 
property.^ Similar subsidies were granted also to 
a number of state corporations for the construction 

' For details, see Davis, Union Pacific Railway, chap. v. 
'Acts of 1862 and 1864, U. S. Statutes at Large, XII., 489; 
XIII.. 356. 



1869] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 439 

of lines to connect with the Union Pacific and in- 
sure unbroken communication between the Mis- 
sissippi River and the western ocean. The vast 
financial projects in which the government thus be- 
came involved called for frequent action by Congress 
and for continuous supervision by the administration. 
The financiers who directed the actual work of con- 
struction undertook from time to time to insure that 
their interests shoiild not be postponed to those of the 
government, and the result was the scandal that is 
associated with the Credit Mobilier.^ 

The progress of the Pacific line across the plains 
led to great social and economic changes through- 
out the vast region between the Missouri and Cali- 
fornia. A ribbon of settlements along the line of 
the road, through Nebraska and beyond, was the 
most immediate and obvious, but far from the most 
important, result. In the mining communities of 
Montana and Idaho, hundreds of miles to the north, 
and of Colorado and New Mexico, as far to the south 
of the line, the actuality of a railway across the 
mountains added the stimulus of potential benefits 
to a life that was never lacking in the allurements 
of hope. Numerous branches to tap the country 
on both sides of the main line formed part of the 
general scheme of the Union Pacific, and parallel 
trimk lines to the north and to the south of the 
original line were already chartered.^ Thus the 

' See Dunning, Reconstruction, p. 232. 

'Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War {Am. Nation, XXI.), 133. 



440 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1868 

various territories created during the war, as a 
result of the discoveries of gold and silver in the 
Rocky Mountains, all felt the influence of the great 
enterprise. A new territory, Wyoming, organized 
by act of July 25, 1868, was practically a product 
of the Union Pacific, no settlement of consequence 
having existed within its limits till the construction 
of the road reached it in 1867.* 

To the aborigines of the plains the building of the 
railway brought a climax of the unrest which first 
came with the irruption of gold - seekers into the 
mountains. The groat nation of the Sioux, irri- 
tated by the establishment of a route to Montana 
through their lands, broke out into fierce hostility, 
put under close siege the military posts which 
were intended to protect the route, and on Decem- 
ber 21, 1866, annihilated a detachment of troops 
imder Lieutenant-Colonel Fettcrman at Fort Philip 
Kearny." The conflagration spread to the southward, 
where the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, of Colorado 
and Kansas, only recently pacified, spread havoc 
and terror among the scattered ranches and mail 
stations of a wide region. All the operations of 
railroad building in Nebraska had to be carried on 
under military protection, and the engineers and 
workmen, many of whom had served in the war, 
were often called upon to exchange the peaceful 
theodolite, pick, and shovel for the ever-ready rifle.' 

» Cf. Am. Anmial Cyclop., iSoS, p. 727. ^Ibid., 1867, p. 401. 
'Cf. Davis, Union Pacific Railway, 140, and paper there quoted. 



iSCy] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 441' 

Extensive operations by the army in 1867 failed to 
bring decisive results. Sheridan, llancoek, Gib- 
bon, Augur, and Custer, campaigning against the 
squalid bands of painted warriors, added nothing 
to the laurels gained in the shock of great armies. 
A peace commission, constituted by a statute of 
July 20, 1867,^ succeeded in the following summer 
in making arrangements with the principal hostile 
tribes; but the chief influence in bringing the Sioux 
to terms was the abandonment of the posts in 
their territory which had originally roused their ire. 
The progress of the railway westward contributed 
most to this, by rendering available a route to 
Montana to which the Indians raised no objection, '^ 
While all the manifold interests associated with 
the transportation industry west of the Mississippi 
were centred about the construction of a single rail- 
road that should make a direct connection with 
the Pacific, the problem cast of the Mississippi was 
chiefly that of piecing out, correlating, and con- 
solidating a multitude of independent roads into a 
group of trunk lines between the Mississippi and the 
Atlantic. It was between 1865 and 1869 that the 
name of Vanderbilt first became of significance in 
railroad enterprise. By the union of the Hudson 
River road with the New York Central, in 1868, a 



* U. S. Statutes at Large, XV., 17. 

^ For this whole Indian matter, see Indian Commission, Report, 
in Sec. of Interior, Report, 1868-1869, p. 486; Am. AnmuilCyclo p., 
1867 and i868, arts. Indian War. 



442 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1865 

new and powerful through line between the sea- 
board and the Great Lakes was developed, to com- 
pete with the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Balti- 
more & Ohio for the traffic across the Appalachians. 
From that event dated a long and ardent rivalry 
among these great corporations in extending their 
direct lines to Chicago and St. Louis, and in absorb- 
ing or rendering dependent a host of lesser com- 
panies. Denunciation of monopoly was promptly 
and loudly directed against the strong men who 
carried through these enterprises; nor did they, in 
fact, omit any device of shifty and ruthless finan- 
ciering when serious opposition was to be overcome. 
But the beneficial results of consolidation were many 
and obvious. Under unified management barbarous 
and costly features of primitive railroading that had 
lasted through the war-time disappeared forever. 
So long as the idea survived that the chief function 
of the railway was to supplement water transporta- 
tion, terminal points of the lines were often at con- 
siderable distances from important business centres, 
connection being completed by steamboats. These 
gaps were now filled; transshipment of freight and 
passengers at connecting points of short railway 
lines was continually reduced in frequency and in- 
convenience; and the era of "through-line" traffic 
on a large scale between the Atlantic coast and the 
Mississippi was fairly inaugurated. 

The social and economic movements with which 
this railroad development was in close relations of 



i868] ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 443 

both cause and effect were of profound significance 
and were noticeable in even the earliest stage of the 
process. Among them were the drift of population 
in the East to the great terminal cities, the build- 
ing up of the northwestern states through the re- 
vived immigration from Europe,* and the struggle 
for popular or governmental control over the man- 
agement of the roads. That it was only the north- 
ern East and the northern West which the growing 
trunk lines united and stimulated was too much a 
matter of course to excite attention or interest. 
The ruined and prostrate region below Mason and 
Dixon's line offered scant attraction to capital or 
enterprise, and great north-and-south through lines 
were left for another generation to create. 

* The annual number of immigrants had fallen during the war 
to a little over ico.ooo (112,702 iu 1861); m 1868 it was 326,232. 



1 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE NEW SPIRIT OF '76 

(1S76-1877) 

THE one hundredth anniversary of the birth of 
American independence came opportunely to 
mark an epoch in American history. The material 
damage wrought by the Civil War was wellnigh 
repaired by time and industry. The discord in the 
hearts of the people was disappearing, as the policy 
of restoring the Union by force was gradually aban- 
doned. How the specific problems of reconstruction 
were met has been described in a preceding volume 
of this series.^ How the beneficent policy of Presi- 
dent Hayes eradicated the last evils of reconstruc- 
tion and hastened a true reunion is to be told in later 
chapters of this volume. 

But there was a reconstruction going on in a larger 
sense ; a reconstruction of industries, an adjustment 
of new sources of supply to new processes of manu- 
facture, a co-ordination of means of transportation 

* Dunning, Reconstruction {Am. Nation, XXII.). 



i87i] ' THE NEW SPIRIT 445 

with the demands of population, an adaptation of 
national vision to the new order of things, and a 
realization that neither secession, civil war, nor 
reconstruction had circumscribed the future of the 
republic. Millions of acres of unoccupied lands 
stretched invitingly towards the west; vast mineral 
resources lay undeveloped in the earth ; forests cov- 
ered the mountain slopes and spread over large 
areas in the northwestern and southern states; and 
unimproved opportunities for new ways of transpor- 
tation presented themselves all over the continent 
and across the adjacent waters. Burdened no longer 
by slavery and sectionalism, the republic seemed to 
enter upon a new era of life as it neared the first 
centennial of its birth. 

To celebrate fittingly and in this spirit the year 
1876, public thought turned towards a national fair 
which should illustrate by proper exhibits the cen- 
tury's progress in the United States, and in which 
other nations might be invited to join. Doubtless 
the success of the Paris Exposition in 1867 and the 
Vienna Exhibition of 1873 suggested this form of 
celebrating the American centennial year. As early 
as March 3, 187 1,* Congress provided for an exhibi- 
tion of American and foreign arts, products, and 
manufactures to be held in 1876 in the city of Phila- 
delphia, the first capital of the federal republic and 
the scene of the drama of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The president of the United States was 

' (/. 5. Statutes at Large, XVI., 470. 



446 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1874 

authorized to appoint a board of commissioners to 
have charge of the enterprise, and also to invite 
other nations to participate. The national govern- 
ment was expressly held free from expense or finan- 
cial liability; and by another act, June i, 1872, a 
board of finance was incorporated to raise the re- 
quired capital.* By joint resolution, June 5, 1874, 
the president was authorized to invite other nations 
to take part in the celebration.^ The federal govern- 
ment further patronized the undertaking by erecting 
a building in which to illustrate the functions and 
workings of its different departments. A tract of 
more than two hundred acres, a part of Fairmount 
Park in Philadelphia, was placed by the city at the 
disposal of the exposition authorities. 

From its inception the enterprise encountered 
difficulties; previous experience with world's fairs 
little guided the uncertain steps of its promotors; 
and the financial panic of 1873 caused many sub- 
scriptions to be cancelled, and threatened, if it con- 
tinued, to reduce materially the number of visitors. 
Thirty-nine nations accepted the invitation to join 
in the exhibition. Some erected buildings and others 
asked for housing at the expense of the finance board. 
Being now threatened with a lack of space in the six 
buildings contemplated, the managers hastily con- 
structed additional buildings and annexes, the ex- 
pense of which, added to the four and one -half 
millions spent on the main buildings, exhausted 

> U. S. Statutes at Large, XVII., 203. ^ /^^j^^ XVIII., 53. 



1874] THE NEW SPIRIT 447 

their resources. They appealed to Congress to save 
the project and caused a debate in both House and 
Senate on the power of Congress to make an appro- 
priation for this purpose, in which the survivors of 
strict construction made a last stand. The debate 
marked the passing of constitutional quibbling and 
showed the helplessness of old doctrines before the 
new demands of national pride. 

Advocates of the proposition to advance one and 
a half million dollars to the Centennial Commis- 
sion could find no precedent except the acts whereby 
appropriations were given for American representa- 
tion in the London Exhibition of 1851, and the later 
Paris Exposition and Vienna Exhibition. The total 
of seven hundred thousand dollars spent for this 
purpose seemed to have excited little opposition or 
alarm at the time ; but the Democratic opponents of 
the proposed relief measure for the Centennial board 
were now insistent that Congress had no power under 
the constitution to warrant the proposed appropria- 
tion. Its defenders waived the letter of the consti- 
tution, claiming that the enterprise was entitled to 
national support because it was national in its incep- 
tion and organization. One speaker asked : " Where 
did Congress derive the power to embellish and 
decorate the grounds and buildings of the Govern- 
ment? Where did it derive the power to purchase 
works of art which adorn these Halls and add to 
their attractiveness ? Where did it derive the power 
to purchase the magnificent library of which we 



448 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1874 

boast? Where did it derive the power to fit out 
expeditions to explore the polar seas and to travel 
to foreign countries to observe the transit of Venus ? 
Where did it derive the power to appropriate money 
on three different occasions to promote international 
exhibitions held in other countries? Where did it 
derive the power to encourage art, to promote sci- 
ence, to advance practical and useful industry, to 
maintain an Agricultural Department, or a horti- 
cultural garden, a National Observatory, or a Signal 
corps?" ^ 

Many of the acts thus appealed to had been passed 
by Democratic Congresses, thus placing that party 
upon the defensive. One member illustrated in his 
argument the microscopic care with which the strict 
constructionists had been compelled to search each 
line of the constitution to justify the action which 
national growth and necessity demanded from time 
to time. He refused to accept the easy doctrine of 
"implied powers" and sought an explicit clause for 
each statute. The right to fire a salute in the army 
and navy he justified by the provision of the con- 
stitution authorizing Congress to raise armies and 
support a navy; the erection of the ornamental 
dome to the Capitol was warranted by the phrase 
"and other needful buildings"; the purchase of 
works of art for adorning the building was exten- 
uated by court decisions that pictures were included 
as part of a building; the appropriations for the 

* Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 479. 



1874I THE NEW SPIRIT 449 

entertainment of foreign ambassadors was vindicated 
under the power "to receive public ministers and 
ambassadors"; the polar expedition and that sent 
to observe the transit of Venus were grounded on 
the power to maintain a navy; and grants of public 
lands for educational purposes were warranted by 
the power given to Congress to "dispose of" the 
territory and other property of the United States.* 
Henry Clay was jokingly quoted as declaring in 
the bank bill debate in 1811,^ that when any 
one was in search of ground for a doubtful action 
he went to the clause in the constitution giving 
Congress the right to regulate commerce. Yet some 
of the justifications named above were almost as far- 
fetched. 

Advocates of the proposed measure wished to 
rise superior to constitutional quibbles such as sup- 
posedly went out of fashion in the Civil War, and 
to ground the appropriation on the right to save the 
national honor and to promote the national pride. 
Instances were cited of the appropriation for con- 
structing a tomb for Washington and the money 
spent in entertaining Lafayette in 1824 — each of 
which could be justified only by the patriotic im- 
pulse of the people. "Many things have been 
done," confessed one speaker, "perhaps not within 
the strict letter of the Constitution; but we have 
high authority for the saying, ' The letter killeth, the 
spirit giveth life. ' The power which saved a nation's 

* Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 511, 512. ^ Jbid., 510, 



450 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1876 

life can save a nation's honor." * The appeal to the 
nation's honor was successful in overcoming what- 
ever of narrow-constructionism, once voiced by Jef- 
ferson, by Madison, and by John Taylor of Caroline,^ 
survived the fire of the Civil War. "Expediency" 
had replaced "constitutionality" as the criterion. 
The bill was passed and became a law February 16, 
1876,^ and the financial success of the project was 
no longer in doubt. In addition to this loan, the 
government expended on the exposition, by erecting 
a building, by making exhibits, and by admitting 
foreign exhibits free of duty, about six hundred 
thousand dollars more."* 

Thus relieved of financial difficulties, the Cen- 
tennial Exhibition was opened in May, 1876, ^vith 
elaborate ceremonies and maintained until Novem- 
ber of the same year. Twenty-six states of the 
Union and many foreign nations erected character- 
istic buildings for the housing of their exhibits, in 
several of which structures native building material 
was employed exclusively. Some of the principal 
trades and manufactures also erected buildings in 
which they showed their products or processes.^ 

The Exhibition had a marked and unexpected 
effect in stimulating travel. Preparations to carry 

' Cong. Record, 44 Cong., i Sess., 479. 

'See Channing, Jeffersonian System {Am. Nation, XII.), 
chap. vi. ^ U. S. StatiUes at Large, XIX., 3. 

* Eocec. Docs., 44 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 74, p. 13. 

'Centennial Exhibiton of 1875, Report, IV.; Harper's Weekly, 
XX., 422; cf. Dunning, Reconstrttction {Am. Nation, XXII.), 292. 



1876] THE NEW SPIRIT 451 

the visitors included the completion of the Bound 
Brook route from New York to Philadelphia, and 
an extension of the Lehigh Valley Railway to 
Buffalo. At least three million individuals must 
have visited Philadelphia, of whom more than two 
millions came from a distance of one hundred miles 
or more. Up to this time Americans had, as a 
whole, travelled little: the modern exodus to Eu- 
rope had not begun, and the few returned travellers 
were always sure of an audience to hear of their 
novel experiences abroad. Even their own land 
was to most Americans a terra incognita. The man 
who had visited California was a second Marco Polo 
or Sir John Mandeville. In Philadelphia the world 
was brought together in a small compass: most of 
the visitors for the first time saw the carvings of 
India, fabrics, bronzes, and jewelry from France, 
lacquered work from the Netherlands, lace from 
Brussels, German textiles and dyestuffs, Bohemian 
glassware, Swiss watches, wrought-iron and earthen- 
ware from Sweden, silver filigree- work from Norway, 
Russian enamels and furs, Italian ornaments, Egyp- 
tian embroideries, Mexican onyx. Orange Free State 
ivory and skins, Hawaiian corals and shells, Brazilian 
woods and fruits, Chilian leather, and Oriental mar- 
vels of delicate workmanship. For the first time, 
thousands saw Chinese carpenters at work in truly 
antipodal manner, drank Paraguayan mate or tea, 
marvelled at the many uses of gutta-percha, ex- 
amined the wooden clocks from the Black Forest, 



452 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1876 

were amused by the figures clad in peasant costumes 
from Sweden and from China, discussed a new floor 
covering known as "Hnoleum," and wondered at the 
cunning workmanship and artistic invention of the 
almost unknown Japanese. 

Even more potent in their beneficent results were 
the educational and art exhibits/ The American 
educational system had been wrought out largely 
from subjective experience and suffered from self- 
sufficiency and complacency. The school exhibits 
sent from other nations, especially Belgium, were a 
revelation in the matter of sanitary school surround- 
ings and hygienic conditions. America was deficient, 
it was also found, in the cultivation of artistic sense 
and agreeable environment of the school-buildings. 
Germany and Switzerland excelled all in methods 
of teaching manual training, beginning with child- 
hood.^ Two buildings on the Centennial grounds 
were devoted solely to the kindergarten methods of 
training children, and this valuable factor in educa- 
tion was widely introduced into America. In 1873 
there were only forty-two kindergarten "institutes" 
in the United States; in 1878 the number had in- 
creased to one hundred and fifty-nine, with nearly 
five thousand pupils.^ 

A permanent building of granite, glass, and iron, 
known as Memorial Hall, housed the art collection. 

» Senate Exec. Docs., 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 74, pp. 14-17- 

^ North Am. Rev., CXXXII., 64. 

8U. S. Comr. of Education, Report, 1878, p. Ixxvi. 



1876] THE NEW SPIRIT 453 

American art was confessedly crude and undeveloped 
and the exhibit was for the most part made up of 
foreign productions ; but good judgment was shown 
in making the American collection largely an assem- 
blage of historical paintings and portraits especially 
appropriate for a centennial display. Great Britain 
and Austria led in paintings loaned for the occasion, 
and Italy in marbles. 

Notwithstanding the presence of these paintings 
and marbles, some disappointment was felt by lovers 
of art that the contribution from European centres 
was so meagre. America was not yet known as a 
patron of art. Few works of value had been im- 
ported, and American productions of permanence 
were almost as rare. Only thirteen recognized "art 
collections" existed in the entire United States in 
1876, that of the Corcoran Gallery in Washington 
and of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York 
being most praiseworthy. The buildings of the Cen- 
tennial did not compare favorably with later exposi- 
tions, after a refined taste and skilled creators had 
been evolved. 

America made slow progress in architecture as 
well as in art. Planting colonies and clearing the 
backwoods required immediate and usable dwellings 
and other buildings, with little regard for appearance' 
sake. Time was required for an awakening to the 
possibilities of the higher art of construction. Yet 
the Philadelphia display opened the eyes of the 
American people to the value of art in its more 

30 



454 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1876 

material aspects of manufacture. Industrial draw- 
ing in the schools speedily replaced or gave life to 
the inane "free-hand"; better designs in fabrics 
and furniture were brought out; and manual train- 
ing received a place among legitimate studies of the 
school curriculum.^ Men of wealth sought to ac- 
quire real works of art for private or public collec- 
tions, and the artistic factor was introduced into 
modern American life, without which the present 
industrial age would be one of hopeless materialism. 
The bare walls and windows of many school-rooms 
were soon adorned with works of art and with 
potted plants. In the home, artistic and rare fur- 
nishings began to replace crude and glaring speci- 
mens of amateurish handiwork. 

At the Centennial, in the popular estimation a 
painting representing a violin hanging on a panelled 
door was rivalled only by the Corliss engine. No 
visit to Philadelphia was complete without a view 
of these two crowning glories. The "monster" en- 
gine of fourteen hundred horse-power was sufficient 
to move all the machinery in the Exposition.- The 
people were able to see produced before their eyes 
newspapers, pins, boots and shoes, bricks, envelopes, 
candies, tacks, nails, corks, carpets, dress-goods, and 
shingles. At one place could be seen a method for 
driving piling by the force of exploding gunpowder; 

' U. S. Comr. of Education, Report, 1876, pp. cci.-ccxii.; 1877, 
pp. ccii.; 1878, pp. cxcvi.; 1893-1894, pp. 877-950. 
"^Harper's Weekly, XX., 421 (May 27, 1876). 



1876] THE NEW SPIRIT 455 

at another a contrivance for unloading vessels by an 
automatic railway. Pneumatic tubes for transport- 
ing small parcels with great speed by exhausting the 
air in front was a strange device at the time. The 
Westinghouse air-brake and other contrivances for 
the safety of railway passengers were objects of spe- 
cial interest. A variety of typewriters was shown, 
the first of which was put on the market in 1872, 
although a patent was granted for this object as 
early as 1829; but the machines were considered 
novelties rather than necessities. The patent office 
displayed sixty thousand drawings and five thousand 
models to show what had been accomplished in 
America by inventors.^ 

The effect of the inspiration of the Centennial 
Exhibition in its manufacturing aspect was mani- 
fest in the increase of engineering courses offered in 
the colleges and in the founding of new schools de- 
voted to technical education. Under the patronage 
of grants of public land authorized by the federal 
government in 1862, the old " farm - schools " had 
been replaced in the various states by agricultural 
colleges, intrusted also with teaching the "mechanic 
arts." Lacking the traditional classical and cultural 
courses, these led a precarious existence, until 
touched by the magic of engineering in the dawn of 
the industrial age. Here were laid the broad foun- 
dations for many of the modern state universities 
and the technical and agricultural colleges which 

1 U. S. Tenth Census (1880), IV. 



456 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1876 

are credited with achieving for technical education 
what the sectarian colleges have done for general 
education. In these schools manual labor has been 
ennobled and farming has been raised from drudgery 
to a skilled profession through the application of 
science to its art. 

To this end, indeed, the agricultural exhibit at 
Philadelphia conduced largely. It was the most 
novel feature of the exhibition, compared w^th pre- 
vious European expositions. The display of farm 
implements and machinery showed that America 
was far in advance of other nations in these particu- 
lars; and it was argued that the immense space of 
tillable lands and paucity of adequate labor had 
combined to quicken the mechanical skill and in- 
vention of cultivators of the soil. The food-produc- 
ing possibilities of the various states were a revela- 
tion to the inhabitants themselves. Even far-away 
Washington territory sent a creditable display of 
agricultural products and fruits. Among the novel- 
ties of the day was the use of Spanish moss from the 
southern states for upholstering purposes, and "an 
apparatus for hatching chickens." Bake-shops were 
established on the grounds to demonstrate the mak- 
ing and to further the use of the crusted bread and 
rolls known to the Old World. Soon a " Vienna bak- 
ery" could be found in every city.* 

The total number of admissions to the Exposition 

» See the numerous Guides and Hand-Books of the Centennial 
Exhibition. 



1876] THE N£W SPIRIT 457 

was about ten millions and the admission receipts 
were nearly four million dollars. To this source of 
income were added subscriptions from individuals, 
from the United States government, the state of 
Pennsylvania, and the city of Philadelphia, swelling 
the total assets to more than eleven million dollars. 
After all expenses were met and the loan repaid to 
the United States treasury, there remained a suffi- 
cient balance to return to each subscriber nearly a 
fifth of his subscription.* 

An interesting sequence of the Philadelphia fair 
may be found in the increased export trade in the 
years immediately following. The attention of for- 
eign visitors was called to the superior advantages 
of certain American manufactures useful in their 
business, and to the low price of certain raw ma- 
terials required in their factories. Cheap American 
food products found a ready market abroad. For 
instance, "butterine," or oleomargarine, a food 
scorned by American working-men, was exported in 
1878 to the value of almost half a million dollars. 
Indian-maize, or "corn," it was hoped, would also 
find a sale in Europe and Asia, being one of the 
cheapest foods known ;^ but it was soon demon- 
strated that popular prejudice would militate against 
its use except in years when a shortage of wheat or 
other accustomed grains made a resort to maize nec- 
essary. 

^Senate Exec. Docs., 45 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 74, pp. 18, 152. 
^U. S. Tenth Census (1880), III., 485. 



458 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1876 

From this date is reckoned the growing impor- 
tance of the United States as the food producer for 
a large part of the Old World. In 1876 40,000,000 
bushels of corn and 70,000,000 bushels of wheat 
went from the United States ports to various foreign 
lands; in 1880 the wheat export reached 150,000,000 
bushels, and that of corn 91,000,000 bushels,^ being 
nearly one-third the entire crop of each. In the 
Centennial year the cotton crop reached permanently 
the 4,000,000 bales mark, a figure reached before the 
war only in 1859 and in i860. In 1881 the crop 
aggregated 6,000,000 bales, nearly two -thirds of 
which went to Europe, forming about one-half the 
cotton consumed there.^ The wool crop of the 
United States was about a sixth of the total for the 
world ; but almost the whole of it was retained for 
home consumption.^ Only a thousand tons of pig- 
iron and an equal amount of iron and steel rails were 
exported in 1880."* Manifestly the United States 
was destined to become the source of supply for food 
before her manufactures would be demanded. 

The amount of dried fruit sent abroad increased 
in 1877 twenty times over the amount exported dur- 
ing any preceding year. Ripe fruit also was shipped 
on steamships in iced chambers, with some degree of 
success. Still more novel was the experiment of 
sending dressed beef to Europe in large refrigerating 

* U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1900, pp. 328, 329; Railway Gazette, 
August I, 1 88 1. ^ U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1900, p. 331. 

'/6i<i.,334. * Ibid., ^62. 



i88i] THE NEW SPIRIT 459 

chambers constructed in steamships. In 1876 nearly 
twelve thousand carcasses of beeves were shipped in 
this way and the experiment proved that such a 
method was feasible/ Live cattle had frequently 
been shipped to England and a steady market for 
American beef had been built up; but the dressed 
beef could not command so high a price as the live- 
stock, and the expense of the refrigerators was too 
heavy to make the practice profitable except in times 
when cattle were unusually cheap. However, im- 
proved methods were introduced in due time, and 
by 1 88 1 the trade in dressed meat had grown to the 
value of $6,000,000. In 1884 the export trade in 
live cattle amounted to nearly $18,000,000, and that 
of fresh beef to $12,000,000. In the same year, 
$34,000,000 worth of bacon and nearly $25,000,000 
worth of lard went from the United States to feed 
the people of other countries.^ 

In return, stock raisers imported live-stock for 
breeding purposes to the value of $415,000 in 1873; 
but steadily increased their importations until they 
reached $1,245,000 by 1881.^ Percheron horses, Jer- 
sey cows, Poland China hogs and other established 
breeds began to replace the mongrel stock on the 
farms, and placed cattle, sheep, and hog raising in 
a class distinct from farming."* 



» Frank Leslie's Weekly, XLIV., 84. 
^ U. S. Bureau of Statistics, Report, 1884, p. xx. 
^ Appleton's Annual Cyclop., 1882, p. 487. 
* Harper's Weekly, XXV., 266. 



46o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1884 

It is a coincidence, and probably merely a coinci- 
dence, that the Centennial year marked the perma- 
nent shifting of the balance of trade in the United 
States from the import to the export column. In 
only three years before that date — viz., 1857, 1862, 
and 1874, did the United States sell more goods than 
it bought; but after 1876 there were only three years, 
1888, 1889, and 1898, when the purchases exceeded 
the sales. ^ 

' U. S. Statistical Abstract, igoo, p. 92. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 
(1880-1897) 

THE years from 1885 to 1897 cover a period of 
imsettlement. Action and reaction followed in 
quick succession. The period lacks definiteness ei- 
ther of purpose or of progress; there was no una- 
nimity of opinion as to the facts of economic life 
or as to national policy. Old political platforms 
were not applicable to the new problems. Party 
politics became confused, and shrewd political lead- 
ers were at a loss which way to turn. The result 
was uncertainty, vacillation, and inconsistency; in- 
dependence of judgment aroused dissensions, and 
was frequently rewarded by defeat and retirement 
from public life. 

A Democratic president and House opposed by a 
Republican Senate mark the first four years; then 
for two brief years (i 889-1 891) there was a united 
Republican executive and Congress; a Democratic 



462 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

House blocked legislation during the next two 
years. For an equal term the Democrats were in 
possession of the executive and the legislative branch 
(1893-1895), and this was again followed by a di- 
vided Congress. Meanwhile there were disagree- 
ments within the two parties. On monetary ques- 
tions the West and South did not agree with the 
East; on taxation the Democratic party was hope- 
lessly split. Hence it was impossible to secure har- 
monious development in legislation: a silver law 
was passed and repealed; within four years two 
tariffs were put in force; and an income tax was 
imposed, only to be declared unconstitutional. Fu- 
tile attempts were made to restrain the increas- 
ing power of corporations and organized capital. 
The addition of new racial stocks to the population 
and the inefificiency of municipal government also 
widened the field of agitation. The economic life 
of the country was unstable; a slow recovery from 
the depression of 1884 led to imprudent undertak- 
ings, while commercial recklessness and legislative 
error destroyed prosperity. Once more the nation 
had to climb the long and arduous road leading to 
confidence and enterprise. At every turn — from re- 
covery to panic, and then to fresh recovery — per- 
plexing problems arose. Some of these were new, 
such as the control of combinations of wealth, but 
more were disguised under new forms, such as the 
relation of public office to party responsibility. 
Between 1880 and the beginning of the new cen- 



1897] DEVELOPMENT 463 

tury twenty-six million people were added to the 
population, or more than the entire number of 
inhabitants in 1850. Nearly one-fourth of this in- 
crease was absorbed by four older states on the sea- 
board — Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania; the other three-quarters were spread 
with unequal distribution over the remaining area, 
but was especially located on the western land avail- 
able for homesteaders, which was being rapidly 
exhausted,* Thus, between 1890 and 1900 the acre- 
age disposed of by the government was roundly 
one-half what it had been in the previous decade. 
In 1880 there were five territories which had less 
than fifty thousand inhabitants each; in 1900 there 
were only two states, Nevada and Wyoming, that 
had not passed the mark of one hundred thousand. 
Homestead entries reached a maximum in Dakota 
in 1883 ; in Kansas, in 1886; in Colorado, in 1888; in 
Washington, in 1891 ; and in Wyoming, in 1895. 

Population quickly followed the construction of 
railroads through the northern tier of states and 
territories stretching from Minnesota to Oregon, so 
that in twenty years the number of people in this 
vast domain more than trebled. Farmers settled in 
Dakota so rapidly that single counties with scarcely 
an inhabitant at the beginning of the summer were 
well populated by the end of the year.* Rich min- 
erals of gold, silver, and copper were discovered in 

* U. S. Department of Agriculture, Year-Book (1898), 327. 
^ Appleton's Annual Cyclop. (1887), 218. 



464 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1885 

Idaho and Montana; while in Washington Territory 
timber supplies of great value were opened to a 
market. South of this border growth, violent 
changes appeared in the currents of migration. Be- 
tween 1880 and 1890 population declined in the 
agricultural counties of western Illinois and eastern 
Iowa, because of the opening up of more promising 
land to the west. In the next ten years many 
farmers in Nebraska, Colorado, and South Dakota, 
discouraged by the deficiency of water and the in- 
tense winter cold, abandoned their homes. Okla- 
homa and the Indian Territory furnished an outlet, 
and many farmers moved northward into Canada. 
Taking the entire area west of the Mississippi, the rate 
of increase of population was not much more than 
half as great in the last ten years of the century as 
in the previous decade. Migration from the state 
of birth to another state for residence continued to 
be characteristic of the native population. As late 
as 1900 the ratio in Iowa of the native whites born 
within the state to those born without was one to 
three ; in Kansas and Nebraska the native strangers 
were equal to those born within the limits of the 
state; while in Colorado the natives were outniim- 
bered. 

The Indians did not escape from the pressure of 

the population westward; their frontier was rapidly 

disappearing,* for their reservations stood in the 

way of great railway systems to the Pacific. Even 

' Richardson, Messages and Papers, VIII., 519. 



1890] DEVELOPMENT 465 

the Indian Territory, once remote from civilization, 
was in the path of settlement, and ranchers looked 
with envious eye upon the vast domains given over 
to hunting. "The Indian must make his final stand 
for existence where he is now," said Lamar, secre- 
tary of the interior, in 1885 ; ^ no longer could he be 
pushed back into the wilderness. With the filling 
up of the country to the west, another removal of 
the Indian was impracticable; the immediate prob- 
lem, therefore, was the adjustment of Indian barbar- 
ism to Anglo-Saxon civilization. The alert Amer- 
ican, busy with the interests of modern life, would 
not tolerate the uneconomic use of millions of acres 
given over to Indian occupancy; and the humani- 
tarian friends of the Indian slowly came to the con- 
viction that a life of dependence upon government 
rations from day to day accomplished little in the 
way of permanent progress. A new solution was 
therefore proposed, the breaking up of the tribal 
relation and substitution of individual ownership 
in place of tribal ownership on the reservation.^ 
In 1887 the so-called Dawes bill was enacted, pro- 
viding for the allotment of lands in severalty; to 
each head of a family a quarter-section was to be 
granted, with smaller allotments to others; and in 
order to protect the grantee against land -sharks 
and speculators, conveyance of the land thus al- 
lotted was prohibited for a period of twenty-five 

^Messages and Documents, 49 Cong., i Sess., I., 23. 
' U. 5. Statutes, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., chap. cxix. 



466 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1885 

years. Along with these material grants, under the 
Dawes act the Indian in severalty received the 
right of citizenship. There was hope that when 
the Indian became a citizen, with the individual 
ownership of a farm, the system of rations, annui- 
ties, and tribal institutions would disappear. 

In order to satisfy the land-hunger of the whites, 
efforts were made to buy from the Indians portions 
of their reservations, wherewith to enlarge the pub- 
lic domain for settlement by homesteaders. The 
Indian reservations in 1885 amounted to 225,000 
square miles, ^ one-eighth of which would suflQce to 
furnish a half -section of land — 320 acres — to each 
man, woman, and child of the 250,000 Indians west 
of the Mississippi. The government, however, in- 
stead of paying the money directly to the Indians, 
by whom it would have been quickly squandered, 
invested the funds for the benefit of the tribes. 
More liberal appropriations were also made for the 
education of Indians, until, in 1888, 15,000 Indian 
youths, or more than a third of the total number 
considered "teachable," were enrolled in schools.^ 
In 1 89 1 a compulsory education act was passed by 
Congress, and all children of a suitable age w^ere 
brought undei* its jurisdiction ; ^ for some of them, 
government day-schools were provided; but the 
majority were taken from their homes and placed 

' Richardson, Messages and Papers, VIII., 355. 

^ Ibid., 796. 

' Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Anniial Report (1891), I., 67. 



1890] DEVELOPMENT 467 

in reservation boarding-schools, or in training- 
schools outside the reservation, as at Carlisle, Penn- 
sylvania, or at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, 
Kansas. 

The Indian problem seemed at last in a fair way 
of settlement; certainly there was outward peace, 
though occasionally there was an outbreak, usually 
because of disregard of Indian treaty rights by care- 
less or over-aggressive settlers, and particularly by 
cattle-men, as was shown by an unwarranted attack 
upon the Utes in Colorado in 1887,^ In 1885 the 
turbulent Apaches in New Mexico went on the war- 
path, murdered a hundred persons, and threw the 
Southwest into a panic. The Indians also suffered 
from the bad management of some of the agencies; 
rations were stolen by dishonest officials, and re- 
newed charges were made that the government was 
not living up to its treaty obligations. A long rec- 
ord of such provocations led a portion of the Sioux 
tribe in Dakota to engage in hostilities in 1890, 
Medicine -men preached the coming of a messiah 
who should give the Indians power to destroy their 
enemies, and ghost dances wrought the tribe up to 
a religious frenzy. Troops were quickly assembled 
under General Miles, and there was open warfare, 
resulting in the killing of five hundred Indians and 
thirty soldiers in the battle of Wounded Knee, 
December 29, 1890. 

The rich district of Oklahoma — " the beautiful 

^ N.Y. Tribune, October i, 1887. 



468 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1889 

land " — \vithin the limits of the Indian Territory, 
was especially coveted by the white man. Lawless 
"boomers," as far back as 1880, had sought to oc- 
cupy this land, but were tlriven off by Federal troops. 
In 1885 President Cleveland warned oil intruders.' 
The land could not be opened up except by exec- 
utive proclamation; and President Cleveland con- 
tinued obdurate in his determination to keep faith 
with the tribes. A horde of restless and angiy 
pioneers crowded to the frontier, and frequently 
molested the Indians within the territory. Finally, 
with the consent of the Indian nations, the land 
was purchased by the government, and President 
Harrison issued the desired proclamation permit- 
ting entrance at twelve o'clock, noon, April 22, 1889.' 
Meanwhile the border colonies had increased in num- 
bers. "Whole outfits for to\vns, including port- 
able houses, were shipped by rail, and individual 
families, in picturesque, primitive, white - covered 
wagons, journeyed forw^ard, stretching out for miles 
in an unbroken line. . . . The blast of a bugle at noon 
on a beautiful spring day was the signal for a wild 
rush acRiss the borders. Men on horseback and on 
foot, in every conceivable vehicle, sought homes 
with the utmost speed, and before nightfall town 
sites were laid out for several thousand inhabitants 
each." ' Fifty thousand persons entered the terri- 
tory, and over six thousand were conveyed to Guthrie 

' Riohanlson, Messages and l^af^ers, VIII., 303. 

' IbiJ., IX.. 15. » Apph'ton's Annual Cyclop. (1SS9), 676. 



1889] DEVELOPMENT 469 

by rail on the first day. In ten years three million 
acres in this section were added to the area devoted 
to the production of cereals. 

The hunger for land and the belief that the 
bounty of the government was nearly exhausted 
was again illustrated in 1890 in the opening of a 
portion of the Sioux reservation in Dakota, where 
troops were needed to hold back the eager home- 
seekers. Although the barriers were raised in mid- 
winter, thousands acquired title.* 

The continued demand for land gave rise to 
projects for reclaiming the arid regions of the West 
by irrigation. In the decade 1890 to 1900 the area 
of irrigated land more than doubled, and, although 
the amount was small compared with the total un- 
tillablc area, its economic importance was great, 
and the conquest gave new courage to states which 
had been disappointed in earlier plans of internal 
development. The government also took vigorous 
steps to recover the lands which had been granted 
to railroads in the West, and by them, contrary to 
the spirit of the law, leased to ranchmen and spec- 
ulators, who held them in large estates. During 
President Cleveland's first administration more than 
eighty millions of acres held by corporations and 
syndicates were seized l)y executive proclamation 
or forfeited under act of Congress and returned to 
the public domain.^ 

* Appleton's Annual Cyclop. (1890), 782. 

^ Richardson, Messages and Papers, VIII., 359, 795. 

31 



470 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

Immigration was responsible for a large part of 
the increase in population. Between 1880 and 
1900 about nine million aliens landed in the United 
States, nearly as many as in the preceding sixty 
years during which records were kept. Allowing 
for mortality and the return of aliens to their native 
country, the net addition of the foreign-born in the 
country was nearly four millions. There was, how- 
ever, a marked change in the character of immigra- 
tion. Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy helped to 
swell the western stream of population.* Of the 
total number of immigrants nearly one-third came 
from these countries, the numbers being approxi- 
mately the same for each. Norway and Sweden 
increased their quota, while Germany about held its 
own. The Scandinavians settled in the Northwest, 
and constituted an important factor in the grow- 
ing population of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Da- 
kotas. The Slavs, Poles, and Italians did not dis- 
tribute themselves over large sections of the country, 
but remained near the Atlantic seaboard or settled 
in large cities in the interior, as Buffalo, Chicago, 
and Milwaukee. 

The growth of municipalities continued unabated ; 
the number of cities with eight thousand or more 
inhabitants nearly doubled between 1880 and 1890.^ 
In 1880 the urban population constituted less than 
a quarter (22.6 per cent.) of the total population; 
by 1890 it had increased to nearly thirty per cent. 

^Wright, Practical Sociology, $1. ^Ibid., 116. 



iQoo] DEVELOPMENT 47i 

of the total, and by 1900 to a full third. In the 
North Atlantic division of states, covering New Eng- 
land, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the 
city growth was even more marked, embracing in 
1890 more than half of the population. This in- 
crease was helped on by two new influences — im- 
provement in the agencies of street-railway trans- 
portation and the influx of immigrants from eastern 
and southern Europe. 

The overhead trolley electric traction system was 
first tried in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888;^ proving 
successful on a small scale, it was quickly installed 
in Boston, where previous discussion had favored a 
cable system. Other cities followed in substituting 
the trolley for the horse car. In 1890 the ratio of 
animal to electric power on street railways in all 
the cities of the United States was more than four 
to one; in 1902 the entire mileage was practically 
electric. This made it possible for a much larger 
population to live within the suburbs of cities, thus 
extending the social and economic area of municipal 
life. More than one-half of the increase in the popu- 
lation of the Manhattan Borough of New York, be- 
tween 1890 and 1900, was in the Twelfth Ward, 
north of Eighty-sixth Street, seven miles from the 
south end of the city. Suburbs were made possible 
in sections which could not be reached by the steam 
railroad, so that New York City, together with its 

'U.S. Census Bureau, Special Reports : Street and Electric Rail- 
ways (1902), 167. 



472 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

boroughs, grew from less than 2,000,000, in 1880, 
to 3,437,000 in 1900. Within a radius of twenty- 
five miles from the city hall of New York there was 
a population of nearly 5,000,000 at the close of the 
century. Better transportation facilities led to the 
concentration of business in large department stores 
and high ofHce-buildings. 

A large part of the increase in population of the 
seaport towns on the Atlantic was due to the immi- 
gration from eastern and southern Europe; for the 
immigrants from these sources did not quickly dis- 
tribute themselves over the country. They were 
deposited by thousands in New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, and Boston, or carried by train-loads to 
Chicago, or to other interior railway termini. These 
new racial stocks brought poverty and illiteracy, and 
aggravated the problem of the city slum. In 1894, 
three-fourths of the slum population of Baltimore 
were of foreign birth and parentage ; in Chicago, nine 
out of ten ; and in New York and Philadelphia, even 
a greater proportion. Southeastern Europe con- 
tributed three times as many inhabitants as north- 
western Europe to the slums of Baltimore ; nineteen 
times as many to the slums of New York; twen- 
ty times as many to the slums of Philadelphia.* 
The population of the large cities was of a most 
heterogeneous character. In New York, in 1900, 
there were 118,000 from Austria-Hungary, 155,000 

•Commissioner of Labor, Seventh Special Report (1S94), 44, 
72, 160, 163. 



i9oo] DEVELOPMENT 473 

from Russia, 322,000 from Germany, 145,000 from 
Italy, and 275,000 from Ireland. 

By far the greater number of the Slavic and Ital- 
ian immigrants who stayed in the seaport cities of 
the East were unskilled laborers, who at best could 
earn but little ; their standard of living was low and 
degraded. There were no houses adapted for their 
needs ; a* score of families were packed into a sin- 
gle dwelling originally designed for a single family. 
Rear court-yards were fitted with tenements which 
lacked light and air; nor was there provision for 
public education or recreation. Parks, playgrounds, 
and breathing-spaces were alike absent. New York 
City, as the chief port of entry, suffered more than 
any other city. Handicapped by poverty and igno- 
rance, immigrants looked no farther than the city 
which first gave them welcome. And, of all cities, 
New York was the least fitted to receive them as 
permanent dwellers. A narrow strip of land, sur- 
rounded on three sides by water, with inadequate 
transportation facilities, was ill-suited for housing 
this new population. This concentration led to over- 
crowding. In an area of ninety-eight acres in the 
lower East Side, there were 736 persons to the acre. 
Twenty-nine hundred and sixty-nine persons were 
packed into a single block, making a rate of 1724 
persons per acre.* 

Rural sections in many states lost in population. 
In New England nearly two-thirds of the townships 

' Riis, Battle with the Slum, 82. 



474 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

had a smaller number of inhabitants in 1890 than in 
1880. This movement, however, was not confined to 
the East; Ohio and Illinois disclosed nearly as large 
a percentage of loss, and in Iowa 686 out of 1 5 13 town- 
ships fell off/ The relative importance of agricult- 
ure to the other great branches of industry declined 
during the period under consideration. Although 
the per capita production of staple food products 
about held its own, the proportion of the population 
engaged in agriculture fell of! 8.6 per cent. The 
opening up of great areas of farming-land in the 
Northwest, on which machinery could be used with 
advantage, brought a great decline of values to 
the eastern farmers. In twenty years the acreage 
of improved land on farms in New England fell from 
thirteen million five hundred thousand to eight mill- 
ion one hundred thousand ; many farms were aban- 
doned, and by 1890 official investigations were im- 
dertaken in several of the states to determine in 
what ways population might be attracted back to 
the country.* 

The development of manufactures was the great 
industrial characteristic of this period. The num- 
ber of the employes and the value of the product 
was more than doubled. In this growth the steel 
industry took a leading part, the value of its output 
increasing eightfold. By 1892 imports and exports 
of manufactures of iron and steel balanced, and 

* Anderson, Country Town, 60, 62. 

^ Industrial Commission, Report, X., cxlvi. 



iQoo] DEVELOPMENT 475 

henceforth the United States exported more than 
she imported. Steel was employed for many new 
purposes, as, for example, freight-cars. Its use made 
possible the construction of office-buildings running 
even to thirty stories in height and requiring as 
much as a thousand tons of steel.* Another marked 
feature was the establishment of cotton manufactures 
in the South, where water-power, low-priced labor 
of women and children, long hours of labor,^ and the 
cheap cost of living gave advantages which quickly 
attracted capital ; in less than twenty years the num- 
ber of spindles operated in factories in the south- 
ern states was increased five times, while the North 
made but little gain. In 1900, North Carolina and 
South Carolina spun more than one -half of the 
cotton grown within their limits. Many other man- 
ufactures took root in this section, and the number 
of wage-earners trebled between 1880 and 1900. In 
Alabama there were five times as many in 1900 as in 
1880; in Texas and North Carolina, four times as 
many; in Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, 
three times as many. In 1900 these six states had 
approximately as many wage-earners in mills and 
factories as Massachusetts had in 1880. 

With the construction of railways new sources 
of labor were drawn upon, as from the upland dis- 
tricts of the piedmont.^ In every direction the 

' Industrial Commission, Report, XIX., 541. 

^Ihid., VII., 52, 56. 

^ Murphy, Problems of the Present South, 104. 



476 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

South showed great powers of recuperation and de- 
velopment. The old branches of industry to which 
she had long been accustomed prospered, and new 
arts were added to her activity. There was a 
large increase in the acreage and crop of cotton, 
principally because the use of commercial fertilizers 
brought into cultivation tracts hitherto regarded 
as valueless. The cotton territory was extended 
into North Carolina on the north and Texas on the 
south, and cleared pine lands were added to the 
alluvial districts as a source of cotton supply. Im- 
provements in water transportation also gave rise 
to a new industry — the shipment of fruits and vege- 
tables to northern markets. 

The application of electricity to industrial arts 
was pursued with eager activity. Arc-lighting was 
introduced in 1880, and this was followed by the 
use of the incandescent filament. In 1900 the 
average annual per capita expenditure on electrici- 
ty was about $7.00, which represented $1.25 for 
electric apparatus and supplies, $3.00 for electric 
traction, $1.50 for telephone purposes, $0.75 for tele- 
graphic service, and $0.50 for fire-alarms and mis- 
cellaneous use.* These new industries quickened 
the demand for copper, and new mines increased 
the output from 27,000 tons, in 1880, to 270,000 tons 
in 1900 — half the world's product. The production 
of pig-iron trebled in the same period, giving to the 
United States the leadership over every other nation 

'Twelfth Censixs of U. S., X., 157. 



1893] DEVELOPMENT 477 

in this staple. Here, again, the South showed a re- 
markable economic development: a great mineral 
section stretching from West Virginia to northern 
Alabama, seven hundred miles long and one hundred 
and fifty miles wide, was opened up, and through 
proximity of coking coal and limestone to the iron, 
gave every assurance of an early and successful 
development of the manufacture of steel products. 
Alabama became the centre of the iron industry, 
and this state, which in 1880 occupied the tenth 
place in the output of pig-iron, rose to third in rank 
ten years later. In 1890 the South produced as 
much coal, iron-ore, and pig-iron as the whole coun- 
try did in 1870. Birmingham, Alabama, began in- 
deed to send pig-iron to northern and western mar- 
kets. 

Down to the panic year, 1893, large additions 
were made to railway mileage. The greater part of 
new construction was devoted to finishing the sys- 
tems reaching through the West to the Pacific coast, 
and the filling in of branches and feeders. Traffic 
grew at a still more rapid rate, so that greater bur- 
dens were imposed upon the trackage laid down; 
the train - load was made heavier, the capacity 
of freight - cars enlarged, and the size and weight 
of locomotives increased.^ This required improve- 
ments in the road-bed, such as heavier rails, stronger 
bridges, and a more stable ballasting. The use of 
the air-brake in freight service made it possible to 
1 Twelfth Census of U. S., X., 245. 



478 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1880 

run the trains at a higher speed. New construction 
was subordinated to the problem of organization of 
railway business so as to secure greater efficiency 
and economy. 

The telephone, which as a business started in 
1880, became a part of the machinery of communi- 
cation. At first regarded as a luxury, it made its 
way slowly. By 1890, however, it was recognized 
as a necessary equipment of trade and commerce. 
With the expiration of the underlying patents, the 
costs of service were reduced. Its convenience to 
the home, both for business and social purposes, led 
to the establishment of exchanges in suburban dis- 
tricts of cities and in small towns, until even the 
outlying farms were brought within the range of its 
ameliorating influences. In 1900 there were over 
forty-two hundred exchanges with nearly two million 
subscribers, a ratio of a telephone to every forty of 
the population.* 

* Twelfth Census of U. S. (1900), X., 179. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE ART OF LIVING 

OUTSIDE of the contrast between the native 
and the immigrant, the eastern man and the 
western, the farmer and the city man, lies the ques- 
tion of American ideals of conduct. Social life is a 
part of history, both because "the short and simple 
annals of the poor" make up the record of the great 
majority of mankind; and because the way we live 
affects and deflects political happenings. People 
eat and drink, and have very decided opinions as 
to taxes on bread-stuffs and the excise on beer. 
People like to be in the fashion; yet in a spirit of 
patriotic self-denial our revolutionary ancestors boy- 
cotted English goods. People half a century ago fed 
the hungry and protected the oppressed ; and there- 
fore saw no reason why they should be held back 
by a fugitive-slave law. People came to understand 
the importance of education; and statutes against 
child labor sprang into existence. In a thousand 
different ways social and domestic life, especially of 
the common people, finds its expression in the legis- 
lation and the government of the country. 

So it has ever been. The daily life of the seven- 



48o SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

teenth century in the colonies helps to make the 
history of that time picturesque. Who would not 
have hobnobbed with Judge Samuel Sewall, to be 
entered in his diary as "an entertaining gentleman " ? 
Who would not have liked to discuss with Colonel 
William Byrd the points of a good negro field-hand ? 
Who would not have enjoyed sitting with William 
Penn over his proposed constitution for Pennsyl- 
vania ? The colonies had their agreeable side. Not- 
withstanding the diseases of the New World, it was 
a cleaner and healthier place than the court of King 
James I., who never washed his hands, but sometimes 
wiped them on a damp napkin. Yet the fathers lived 
in poverty and hardship, with few houses which peo- 
ple would nowadays think even comfortable; with 
hand-wrought nails, hinges, and locks; with clothes 
of homespun, eked out with small importations of 
foreign linen and cloth ; w4th scanty amusements of 
any kind, except cock-fighting and similar sports for 
the coarser sort. Yet people had their courtings and 
weddings and christenings and comely funerals, with 
abundant store of drinkables. They even joked in 
a stately way, and boys called after a famous divine, 
"John Cotton, thou art an old fool." If social life 
was thin and eventless, people were the more inter- 
ested in the affairs of church and state, and liked to 
complain of "novelties, oppression, atheism, excess, 
superfluity, idleness, contempt of authority, and 
troubles in other parts to be remembered." ^ 

'Eliot, Am. Contributions to Civilisation, 357-359. 



1775] THE ART OF LIVING 481 

Against the narrowness of social life, the South 
always protested, and in the eighteenth century all 
the colonies got away from it. The few rich men 
lived handsomely in houses like the Vassall mansion 
in Cambridge, later the Longfellow House, and al- 
ways the most beautiful place of residence in Amer- 
ica. They had velvet suits, which they carefully 
bequeathed by will to their sons; they had coaches 
and four ; they had silver services like that of John 
Hancock, and proper glasses and no lack of Ma- 
deira to fill them; they wore the crimson small- 
clothes which still adorn the portraits of colonial 
worthies. Alongside these magnates were the pro- 
fessional men, of whom none but the ministers were 
well educated or much respected. The doctors, to 
judge by the account of one of them,* were a rude 
and untutored set, much given to uproarious quar- 
rels over the merits of schools of medicine of which 
they understood little ; the lawyers in New England 
were still under suspicion down to the Revolution, 
as a useless set of fellows. 

Professional men lived much like the well-to-do 
farmers, in comfortable houses, surrounded with 
those families of ten and twelve children which put 
far into the future the shadow of race suicide. Life 
was simple and easy because there was little to do. 
Servants were few, because the older children 
brought up the younger. The men of the eighteenth 
century lived in a world rapidly enlarging, with every 
^ Hamilton's Itincrarium, passim. 



482 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1750 

year more commerce, more travel, more ships, more 
imports, more contact with the world, and a corre- 
sponding rise of discontent. It w^as in its way an 
artistic period ; many of the public buildings of that 
time still stand to show the excellent taste of our 
ancestors in architecture, and the skill of the work- 
man in reproducing English types of the Georgian 
period. The architecture like the people was for 
the most part plain, practical, and infused with 
common -sense; there are no majestic buildings or 
stately public monuments out of that period. The 
wood- work and furniture of the houses show the same 
influence of good English taste ; and the eighteenth 
century portrait-artists, Smibert, Stuart in his suc- 
cessive brandy-and- water style and claret-and- water 
style, and Copley, if they created no school, with 
credit carried out their function as painters in the 
prevailing English style. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that colonial life 
was simply a small copy of the English social life of 
that time. America had no capital, no baths and 
frequented resorts, no cities, and little of the bustle, 
gayety, and fashion of even the English county 
towns. America was provincial, and differed widely 
from provincial England because there was no titled 
aristocracy: considering the part played in other 
English colonies by men of rank, it is surprising how 
few ever found their way to America, and that only 
one hereditary title even of baronet was held there. 
With that sheet-anchor gone, the galley of fashion 



1775] THE ART OF LIVING 483 

could be boarded by anybody who raised himself 
above his fellows ; and the governors, the representa- 
tives of official dignity, had to make terms with 
parvenus by creating them councillors. The colonies 
contained few owners of landed estates living on 
their rents; and in no communities of the world 
have the poor been so well off and the well-to-do so 
little encumbered with prosperity. Morally it was a 
rude and boisterous community, with a great deal 
of hard drinking/ Even in Puritan communities 
there was much sexual immorality, and quarrels and 
riots were frequent ; but the drunkard was pardoned, 
the libertine felt sorry when he went to church, and 
the trend of society was towards honesty, thrift, and 
godliness. 

The status of colonial women was much like that 
of their English sisters, respected, free, safe, good- 
humored, but painfully ignorant. Occasionally arose 
a woman like the poetess Anne Bradstreet, the trav- 
eller Madame Knight, or that most delightful of new 
women, Eliza Lucas, of South Carolina, to prove by 
their pens that women could think. To the great 
majority of colonial women, however, life was as a 
later descendant of the Puritans has described it: 
"Generations of them cooked, carried water, washed 
and made clothes, bore children in lonely peril, and 
tried to bring them up safely through all sorts of 
physical exposures without medical or surgical help, 
lived themselves in terror of savages, in terror of 

• Goelet, in Hart, Contemporaries, II., No. 84. 



484 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1790 

the wilderness, and under the burden of a sad and 
cruel creed, and sank at last into nameless graves, 
without any vision of the grateful days when millions 
of their descendants should rise up and call them 
blessed." ' 

American social life after the Revolution was 
subject to several new influences which modified it. 
A few frontier and isolated communities like the 
eastern shore of Virginia and Cape Cod remained in 
the colonial condition. Where the population thick- 
ened up, city life began and two currents of foreign 
influence were felt. The first, from 1778 to 1793, 
was the French, which much affected the Ameri- 
can habits of life : the lively French officer with his 
admiration for the American pretty girl, and the 
French merchant with his tasteful goods, for a time 
held the market ; then, when the Napoleonic Wars 
began. Great Britain resumed her intellectual and 
commercial sway. It was impossible that the old so- 
cial forms should continue; and the first evidence 
of a great change was the sudden growth of asso- 
ciations of every kind : the churches received a na- 
tional organization ; secret orders, especially the Free 
Masons, began to flourish, and societies for social 
reform multiplied, such as the Colonization Society 
and the Washingtonian temperance societies.^ 

As the country developed, people started new 
industries, wealth accumulated, labor was cheap, 

' Eliot, Am. Contributions to Civilization, 358. 

^ Cf. Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Spencer ed.), II., iii. 



i83o] THE ART OF LIVING 485 

lumber and brick abundant; and throughout the 
United States, especially in the northern sections, 
building went forward rapidly and the cities began 
to widen out. This was the Greek temple pe- 
riod, when the marble portico of the Acropolis was 
imitated in sandstone and stucco throughout the 
United States; and Bulfinch's combination of the 
classic and the romanesque in the Capitol at Wash- 
ington produced the first monumental building in 
the United States. After 181 5 house architecture 
began to run down, and the plastic arts down to i860 
were at a very low ebb. Trumbull's exaggerated 
historical pictures and a few portraits are almost 
the only artistic memorials of that time which are 
valued by posterity. 

In social life the most noteworthy thing was the 
sudden growth of domestic conveniences. Up to 
1800 people lived much like their ancestors three 
hundred years before, in houses many of which had 
but a single great fireplace. Now came a series of 
improvements which put household life on an en- 
tirely different footing. The common use of fric- 
tion matches after 1830 saved an infinitude of pains 
to the cook, the workman, and the smoker; in- 
stead of the iron pots and Dutch ovens came the 
air-tight cook-stove, an unspeakably good friend to 
the housewife; for the open fire was substituted 
the wood-stove, and then the coal-stove, which 
leaked gas but saved toil and trouble ; for the labor 
of the needle, which has kept feminine fingers em- 

32 



486 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1850 

ployed from the time of Penelope, came the sewing- 
machine, rude enough at first, which revolutionized 
the making of clothing. The term " Yankee notion " 
became known in trade, and included patent sausage- 
mills, apple-parers, flat-irons, and a hundred other 
household labor-savers, which relieved the cares of 
life and helped to prolong for another generation the 
era of large families. 

In deeper respects the sixty years in which 1830 
is the mid - point are significant ; and Tocqueville 
minutely photographed and fixed the characteris- 
tics of this time. He finds the American remarkably 
grave, taking thought for the future life and govern- 
ment of his people. American manners seem to him 
easy and sincere: "They form, as it were, a light 
and loosely- woven veil, through which the real feel- 
ings and private opinions of each individual are 
easily discernible." He is struck by an inborn feel- 
ing of social equality, such that the American does 
not easily suppose that his company is declined. 
Society is "animated because men and things are 
always changing; but it is monotonous, because all 
these changes are alike." People move about little, 
and European travel is uncommon. Young people 
are treated with confidence and freedom, and early 
strike out their own course of life. The American 
girl fascinates the Frenchman, and the philosopher 
sums up his deliberations by saying: "I have no- 
where seen women occupying a loftier position ; and 
if I were asked ... to what the singular prosperity 



i86o] THE ART OF LIVING 487 

and growing strength of that people ought mainly 
to be attributed, I should reply — to the superiority 
of their women." The picture painted by this com- 
petent observer is of a busy, thoughtful folk, among 
whom all aptitudes have their part, and who give 
free scope to the individual, yet are somehow op- 
pressed by their own spirit, and know not how to 
get out of a monotonous and not very wide or inter- 
esting life.^ 

The social changes of the earlier nineteenth century 
were accented after the Civil War, and caused a larger 
feeling of national life. The war threw several mill- 
ion men into new combinations, widened their hori- 
zons, taught them to know one another, broke up 
barriers. The West, still farther extending, carried 
people across the mountains and to the Pacific. A 
flood of immigration brought new ideas, and travel 
on a large scale took people of American birth to 
Europe. The South, while distinctly American, had 
kept up a stricter social system with caste distinc- 
tions, but was now opened up for the commercial 
traveller and the health-seeker; so that the parts of 
the Union were as never before interfused with one 
another.^ 

As in the previous era, the "American passion for 
physical well-being" brought about refinements of 



* Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Spencer ed.). H., 1S2, 
202-211, 224-236, 242; of. MacDonald, Jacksonian Democracy, 
chap, i.; Smith, Parties and Slavery, chap. xix. {Am. Nation, 
XV., XVIII.). ' Shaler, United States, II., 310. 



488 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [i860 

domestic life. Cheap transportation distributed fuel, 
and that made possible a variety of new fonns of 
heating hotels, private houses, and public and office 
buildings. The hard-coal base-burner, the hot-air 
furnace, steam-coils, hot-water pipes, and electric 
radiators, each in turn seemed the summit of human 
convenience and comfort. So it was with lights : for 
the old-fashioned tallow candle was substituted the 
whale-oil lamp and the gas-burner, then the kero- 
sene lamp, then incandescent gas and the various 
forms of electric lighting. In colonial days people 
communicated by express riders; then came mails 
carried by men on horseback; in the thirties the 
mail train; in the forties the electric telegraph; in 
the seventies the telephone; in the nineties wireless 
telegraphy. It was the same in household supplies : 
time was when very respectable people, before they 
killed a steer, notified their neighbors and sold pieces 
all round, so that everybody might have fresh beef. 
The parallel inventions of the sealed provision-can, 
which came in after the Civil War, and of trans- 
portation and storage on ice, brought perishable 
goods and delicacies within everybody's reach ; while 
the old-fashioned country store, where everything 
is sold, was developed on a great scale in the city 
department stores. The foreign system of snug 
and cramped quarters was introduced into buildings 
called tenements, flats, or apartments, according to 
their cost and comfort. The Philadelphia World's 
Fair of 1876 waked Americans up to a knowledge 



1907] THE ART OF LIVING 489 

of the possibilities in table service, silver, glass, 
and furniture, so that luxuries long enjoyed by 
the favored few and nurtured by foreign travel 
were suddenly multiplied and sometimes vulgarized. 
Poor indeed is the American family which does not 
every day gaze upon its own antique rug (possibly 
made in Philadelphia), its stained-glass window, and 
its hand-painted oil picture! Remote the hamlet 
from which at least one person has not gone forth 
during the last ten years to stay overnight at the 
Waldorf-Astoria ! 

The amusements of the people have undergone a 
similar transformation: before the war the theatre 
to many good people was a forbidden thing, like a 
pagan sacrifice to an early Christian ; and those who 
went were drawn, not by the decorations, but by the 
acting, while orchestral concerts were the esoteric 
delight of the few. Nowadays amusements are dis- 
tributed wholesale. The old stock companies which 
could play anything from "King Lear" to "Bom- 
bastes Furioso" have disappeared, and their place is 
taken by musical performances on a descending scale 
from grand opera to light opera, from light opera to 
opera bouffe, from opera bouffe to musical farce, 
from musical farce to vaudeville. Americans are far 
from being an artistic people, but there has developed 
an interest in and knowledge of the arts which the 
country never knew before, due to an impetus which 
has come from foreign schools and scenes; and dis- 
tinct American schools of painting, sculpture, and 



490 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1907 

architecture have grown up. Perhaps the three most 
distinguished exhibitors in England of late years have 
been the Americans Abbey, Sargent, and Whistler ; in 
sculpture, MacMonnies and Saint-Gaudens stand in 
the front rank of the world's artists ; in architecture, 
people ceased to imitate feebly the Capitol at Wash- 
ington ; and the weak Gothic of Vaux and the pseudo- 
classic Greek Temple gave place to the broad and 
simple plans of Richardson and McKim, who struck 
out styles of their own admirably fitted to the Ameri- 
can conditions of climate. The Americans have 
also developed a grandiose tower architecture which 
makes the spine of New York bristle like that of 
San Gemignano. Such temples as Trinity Church in 
Boston and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine 
in New York ; such groups of academic structures as 
those of Stanford University and the Harvard Med- 
ical School ; such railway stations as the Broad Street 
in Philadelphia ; such public buildings as the Boston 
and New York public libraries, the Chicago post-of- 
fice, and the Texas state capitol — these show what 
the New World has power to do. 

Out of their long experience the American people 
have built up some definite ideals of social life and 
human intercourse. First of all they have a stand- 
ard of physical comfort more exacting than the 
world has ever known before, due to the great num- 
ber of people who are so well off as to command their 
conditions. Most visitors to America are struck with 



1907] THE ART OF LIVING 491 

what Bryce calls "the pleasantness of American 
life." The houses, which outside the larger cities are 
still mostly of wood, are tight, warm, and well light- 
ed: it was an American lady who complained on a 
winter day that she " could not seem to raise a single 
room above 80° Fahrenheit." Americans are habit- 
ually well dressed, and no nation in the world has 
such a variety and plenty of food. Despite the ill 
effect of overheated houses, Americans have a high 
and rising ideal of the conditions of health; they 
have taken over from their British brothers that 
absorbing interest in sewers which means pure air 
in the house and the protection of the water supply.* 
American doctors share in the training of Europe, 
and have developed schools of medical teaching and 
research which rival all others. The hospital, the 
trained nurse, the expert physician or surgeon, the 
language of health and disease are familiarities in 
America ; and perhaps the time will come when such 
filth diseases as typhoid-fever will be stamped out 
in America as they have been in some foreign coun- 
tries. At any rate, the American has it fixed in his 
mind that his life can be prolonged by medical skill, 
and he appeals to it accordingly. 

From a people of plain living, with or without high 
thinking, the Americans have come to have the most 
luxurious ideals of modern times, in the sense of 
making the largest outlay for things not necessary 

' Cf. Muirhead, America; Eliot, Am. Contributions to Civiliza- 
tion, 2,i, 34. 183. 



492 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1907 

for existence. The absence of a society divided by 
rank, title, and hereditary family leads to a stioigglc 
to "arrive" through a display of money. Ladies at 
a ball may wear a parure of jewels like that of an 
Indian maharajah; at a girl's coming-out party, 
twenty-five thousand dollars may be spent for flow- 
ers, decorations, and perishable refreshments; and 
the wealthy man seeks to express himself through 
an enormous and costly house ; while the great hotels 
have become the Roman baths of modern American 
life and vie with their prototypes in the display of 
marble and bronze.^ 

As to the ideals of pleasure, the careless joys of the 
very rich are not very different from those of the 
middle classes, for the ascetic tradition derived from 
the Puritans and the Quakers has almost spent its 
force. Young people continue to dance and get 
married, to make up theatre-parties, and to spend a 
disproportionate part of their mortal career over 
bridge whist. Public gambling is everywhere pro- 
hibited, but the bucket-shop, the horse-race, the 
broker's put and call, and other forms of taking 
chances against an unseen adversary, are favorite 
amusements. For a considerable part of the popu- 
lation, including the thousands of college students, 
with their admirers and friends, the most absorbing 
amusement is athletic sports; and they absorb the 
whole male population and part of the other sex. 

' Eliot, Am. ContribtUions to Civilization, 291-296; Godkin, 
Problems, 311-332. 



1907I THE ART OF LIVING 493 

Professional baseball and intercollegiate football have 
taken the place occupied by the games of the ancient 
circus. Nevertheless, many thousands of people find 
delight in genuine open-air sports and open-air life 
— in sailing or canoeing, in bicycling, in pedestrian 
trips, in hunting, and in mountain climbing; and 
open-air life, if nothing more than in a roof garden, 
does something for the health and morals of the 
people/ 

The type of society up to the Civil War in villages, 
towns, and small cities was a democratic combina- 
tion of all the well-to-do and respectable people, 
perhaps a single family standing forth as primus 
inter pares; the boys and girls of the community 
often were brought up together like one great family. 
Such conditions can now hardly be found except in 
the smaller western and southern places. The ideal 
of organized society is influenced by social clubs, or- 
ders, and churches, which tend to set people off into 
separate sets and groups. In the cities, and even 
in smaller places, there is a social gradation, uncer- 
tain, changeable, and easily passing from one step 
to another; a few favored spots, especially university 
towns, breathe a general social atmosphere, in which 
all people of sufficient education and refinement 
have a status. Somehow foreigners discover a dis- 
tinct American society, in which all ages take part; 
where, though there are no fixed ranks, nevertheless 
a high standard of courtesy and consideration pre- 

' Muirhead, America, 40-42, 106-127. 



494 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCEvS [1907 

vails; and people lead an agreeable, picturesque, 
and varied life/ 

In this society the most notable ideal is the high 
respect paid to women. If it is no longer true that 
the young woman is the sovereign of American so- 
ciety, it is certain that she has and justifies a degree 
of freedom nowhere else enjoyed. Women freely 
seek and dignify employments as teachers, in pro- 
fessions, as stenographers, as business women, and 
thereby achieve an independence and a right to make 
their own decisions.^ 

Though America has no hereditary ranks, a grow- 
ing sense of family is visible, especially among those 
who can count back to seventeenth and eighteenth 
century ancestors. There is a Society of Mayflower 
Descendants, a Society of Colonial Wars, and various 
organizations of descendants of Revolutionary and 
later worthies; the Revolutionary Society of the 
Cincinnati is still in existence, and the Military 
Order of the Loyal Legion is open to all the sons 
of northern officers in the Civil War, Libraries are 
beset by searchers into genealogy, hundreds of elab- 
orate family histories are written, and there are 
circles where men and women talk of their ancestors 
as confidently as an English county family. Rever- 
ence for ancestors, however, does not extend to grow- 

' Miurhead, America, 26-29, 3Q, 276; Eliot, Am. Contributions 
to Civilization, 97-100; Bryce, Am. Commonwealth (ed. of 1901), 
II., 752-756. 

'^ Giddings, Democracy and Empire, 167-176; Mitirhead, .i4w£'r- 
ica, 45-62. 



igoo] THE ART OF LIVING 495 

ing children, and a kindly visitor is amazed at the 
American "small boy," who "sits down before the 
refusal of his mother and shrilly besieges it. He does 
not desist for company. He does not wish to behave 
well before strangers. He desires to have his wish 
granted." * After all, these precocious and ill-gov- 
erned American children often grow up into tolerable 
men and women. 

The chief ideal of American society is a sense of 
responsibility, which goes outside one's own family 
and neighbors to the great purpose of helping the 
needy and raising the lowest stratum of society. 
The public charities of America are magnificent, and 
no people are doing more to seek the ultimate causes 
of poverty and crime. No nation has so set itself to 
the problem of caring for neglected children, and 
thus preventing crime. No nation does so much by 
legislation to regulate the conduct and morals of the 
people.^ No people has been more successful in rec- 
onciling the social freedom of the individual with 
the responsibility of the state. 

' Muirhead, America, 67. 

2 Crooker, Problems, 126-128. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

INTELLECTUAL LIFE 

AS the historian supervises all other branches of 
i\ learning through his function of recording what 
they accomplish, so the literary man is captain over 
men's ideals, inasmuch as through him they find 
expression. The quaint and disappearing Yankee 
locution "I want to know!" means not so much 
inquiry as sympathy and admiration for another's 
mental processes. But it may stand well enough for 
the effort to give to the mind an outward expres- 
sion through any of three media: through educa- 
tion, the means of passing learning on from age to 
age; through literature, the articulate voice of the 
people ; and through art, the revelation of the inner 
soul. 

In these respects, as in many others, Americans 
have built upon ancient foundations. To all the 
colonies came graduates of the English universi- 
ties, steeped in classics and Hebrew; they at once 
began to set up schools on the English model, and 
within six years of the founding of Massachusetts 
was established Harvard College, followed in 1693 
by William and Mary in Virginia. In 1650 the little 



1689] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 497 

colony of Connecticut voted to establish schools in 
every township, " It being one chief project of Satan 
to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by 
persuading from the use of tongues, to the end that 
learning may not be buried in the graves of our fore- 
fathers, in church and commonwealth." ^ 

For their literature the early colonists turned to 
the mother country. Was not John Milton a suffi- 
cient poet for American Puritans, even if Mrs. Anne 
Bradstreet piped but a treble note ? even if the Bay 
Psalm Book baldly set forth that 

"The earth Jehova's is, 
And the fulnesse of it: 
The habitable world, & they 
That thereupon doe sit"? 

In John Smith, Bradford, and Winthrop the colonists 
developed three writers who are still read for their 
style, their narrative, and their liveliness. As for 
art, the southern colonies had no leisure, and the 
Puritans took no delight in the legs of a man. They 
had not even means to reproduce the churches of 
their old home, except a few venerable buildings like 
Bruton and Smithfield churches in Virginia. Schools, 
colleges, writers, and buildings, it must be owned, 
were crude affairs in the seventeenth century, even 
though filled with a devout and high-minded spirit. 
So far as outward civilization goes, the Spanish col- 
onies were far in advance of the English in print- 

' Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Spencer ed.), I., 37. 



498 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1689 

ing, in writing, in education, and in monumental 
buildings.* 

In the eighteenth century the colonies in every 
way showed an intellectual advance, and at the time 
of the Revolution learning, both of the simple and 
of the broader types, was more widely distributed 
than in England. A small stream of educated immi- 
grants continued, among whom were the Moravians, 
diligent printers. Schools increased, and in New 
England the towns supported the public education 
of boys. Parson Wads worth advised his parishioners 
in bringing up children to "Teach them the Script- 
ures; charge them to live soberly, righteously, and 
godlily ; endeavour the preventing of idleness, pride, 
envy, malice, or any vice whatsoever; teach them 
good manners (A civil, kind, handsome, and coura- 
geous behaviour) ; render them truly serviceable in 
this world." ^ Latin schools and academies grew up 
in the larger places, and new colleges — Yale, Prince- 
ton, King's, Rutgers, Brown, Dartmouth, and the 
University of Pennsylvania. Gifts came from over- 
seas, from Elihu Yale and the Hollises, merchants in 
London, from benevolent societies. The students be- 
gan to take charge of their own education, and to 
have "another Fight with the Sophomores." ^ From 
these educational opportunities the girls were almost 



* Bourne, Spain in America (Am. Nation, III.), chap. xx. 
' Eliot, Am. Contributions to Civilization, 349. 
'Hart, Contemporaries, I., Nos. 89, 137, 171; II., chap, xiv.; 
Hart, Source Book, 122. 



1775] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 499 

entirely shut out; yet such intellectual and lovable 
women as Mercy Warren and Abigail Adams — the 
Portia and Cornelia of the Revolution — were a suffi- 
cient evidence that only half the commimity had a 
fair chance at learning. 

The intellectual ideals of the period are best shown 
in the writers of the time. Addison, Goldsmith, and 
Sam Johnson were national authors read in America, 
and upon English models appeared works by Amer- 
icans born. Freneau's verses, Barlow's Vision of 
Columbus, and Trumbull's satire of McFingal were 
as well worth while as the English minor poets; 
Dickinson, Witherspoon, and Tom Paine could ex- 
coriate the king or each other quite like Junius; 
Jonathan Edwards was the most striking and origi- 
nal theological writer of the century ; and Benjamin 
Franklin was not only the most genial and humorous 
of American writers, he was read abroad, his Poor 
Richard's Almanac was the daily food of the people, 
and he took his place among the world's writers. 
The colonists had their artists also, especially Smi- 
bert, Copley, who is comparable with Gainsborough, 
and Benjamin West, who was successful in England. 
In architecture. Sir Christopher Wren by example 
built many of the churches, though he never saw 
them; and the robust and manly Georgian style 
appears in state -houses and comfortable family 
mansions. In art, as in literature and education, 
America as yet had produced little that was original, 
much that was ingenious ; but had gone further than 



Soo SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1775 

any other nation in popularizing the simple elements 
of intellectual life. Most New England boys and 
girls, except on the frontiers, could read their spell- 
ing-book and their Bible, and were accustomed to 
the intellectual exercises of the pulpit. The Revolu- 
tion stimulated political writing — the pamphlet, the 
disquisition, and the treatise — but did not arouse a 
single novelist or historian or essayist or poet on a 
grand scale. 

Another half-century of preparation was necessary, 
and the first phase of it was the great increase of 
schools and colleges between 1775 and 1825. Just 
as the Revolution was closing, the New England 
schools became genuinely public, in the sense that 
they were opened to the girls as well as boys, and 
that the rural communities were compelled to estab- 
lish district schools. The pressure was now felt in 
the middle states, where from 181 5 to 1835 public 
schools were established; but, notwithstanding Jef- 
ferson's longing for public education, no southern 
state had an efficient system of rural schools previous 
to the Civil War. Improved text-books were intro- 
duced, notably Webster's Spelling Book and Colburn's 
Arithmetic. Academies were founded, some of them 
for the education of boys and girls together ; and the 
colleges made great advance in numbers, in resources, 
and in the number and character of their students. 

No date can be fixed when by common consent 
Americans became more intellectual ; but after 1830, 
in that field as in politics and business life, the condi- 



1847] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 501 

tions are radically different. The public schools up 
to that time were places where people might be 
educated rather than where they must be. In the 
most enlightened states they had poor buildings 
everywhere, and wretched buildings in the country; 
insufficient books, little system, untaught teachers, 
and small sense of responsibility. In 1837 Horace 
Mann in Massachusetts, in 1839 Henry Barnard in 
Connecticut, came forward as the first of a class of 
professional educators; and they set their minds to 
the problem of reform by training the teachers in 
nornial schools and by educating the public to spend 
the necessary money. The first thoroughly organ- 
ized city schools date from the same period; and 
most of the states passed new general laws, increas- 
ing the range of public education; while in a few 
favored cities public high-schools were set up, even 
including the girls. ^ 

Parallel with the improvements in lower edu- 
cation was the development of the first American 
Universities. In 1765 the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, and in 1782 Harvard College, set up medical 
schools. In 1722 the Harvard Divinity School was 
established as the first theological school connected 
with a university. In 18 15 appeared the Harvard 
Law School ; and from that time onward the large in- 
stitutions, such as Yale, Columbia (formerly King's), 
and the University of Pennsylvania, added new de- 
partments or faculties. In 1847 the Sheffield Scien- 

* Shaler, United States, II., 314-322. 
33 



502 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1815 

tific School was established, the first recognition that 
scientific professional instruction was a duty of the 
university. A few enthusiastic Americans who, af- 
ter 1 81 5, went to Germany, brought home doctors' 
degrees and a new spirit of investigation and special- 
ist learning. In the same direction moved the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, which was the triumph of Jeffer- 
son's latter days; for in that institution, opened in 
1825, there was a freedom of study and a sense of the 
need of high training among the professors which 
affected not only the South, but was an example to 
northern institutions. 

Alongside these universities grew up separate sci- 
entific and professional schools, such as West Point 
Military Academy, the Jefferson Medical School of 
Philadelphia, and the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons of New York. Several of the denomina- 
tions set up theological schools for their own clergy. 
This advanced and professional instruction reflected 
a change in the ideals of professional life. Colonial 
medicine was an empirical science, founded on nos- 
trums ; and lawyers were looked upon with suspicion ; 
while, except a few university professors of physics 
and astronomy, there were no scientific men, and 
the clergy was the only learned profession. By 1830 
this was changed ; there were plenty of quacks, but 
also a body of well-trained and sensible doctors, 
including eminent surgeons. The lawyers in and 
after the Revolution were the accepted political 
leaders of the country. The scientific enthusiasm of 



i84o] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 503 

the time was shown by the discovery of the first 
practicable electric telegraph by Morse, and by the 
growth of such technical schools as the Rensselaer 
Polytechnic Institute at Troy, founded in 1824. 
The clergy, on the other hand, owing to the growth 
of new sects, included many poorly educated men, 
and consequently the cloth lost prestige and dignity. 
The same causes that interested people in new 
forms of education brought about a national litera- 
ture. Up to 1820 Franklin was the only American 
writer who could not have grown up in England; 
even Washington Irving wrote on English subjects or 
in a traditional English manner. All at once there 
appeared a splendor of style, a variety of points of 
view, a richness in the portrayal of human experience, 
which marks the Americans of that time as a literary 
people, at the zenith of their intellectual life. The 
new spirit appeared in the newspapers, which till this 
time had been stale, flat, and unprofitable. James 
Gordon Bennett, in the New York Herald, carried out 
a great ideal of collecting news from every possible 
source. William Cullen Bryant, in the Evening Post, 
Horace Greeley, in the New York Tribune, and 
Henry J. Raymond, in the New York Times, made 
the newspaper attractive by a fresh and vigorous 
treatment of the concerns of this world; and in all 
the cities newspapers nourished the intellectual life 
by their appeal to reason and to the public good. 
For the first time Americans came forward in fiction. 
Cooper's novels created a new realm of impossibly 



504 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1830 

clean Indians and incredibly accurate frontier marks- 
men; but the people in his books lived and moved, 
and the world had to know them. Then came Haw- 
thorne, that subtle genius, that miracle of combined 
Puritanism, mysticism, and delicate imagination, 
that Raphael of novelists. Then was the triumvi- 
rate of poets : Holmes, the debonair ; Longfellow, the 
sweet singer; Whittier, embodiment of Quaker fire. 
Greater than them all, James Russell Lowell, loftiest 
of American poets and at the same time the most 
humorous. It was a period of renowned orators, 
such as Edward Everett, the silver-tongued; Henry 
Ward Beecher and Wendell Phillips, champions of 
the lowly. It was the day of the essayist, most of 
whom are obscured by the greater brilliancy of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, the nestor and the culmination 
of American literature. It was the age of George 
Bancroft and Prescott and Motley, who gave their 
lives to history as other men to business ; and, over- 
topping all three of them, Francis Parkman, the 
great American exemplar of the power of the im- 
agination to infuse and explain history. 

In every direction but one, since the Civil War, 
the nation's intellectual ideals have been enlarging, 
but the sad decline is in literature. As the great 
figures of the earlier period moved off the stage, few 
arose to replace them. Artemus Ward was funny, 
but no substitute for the " Biglow Papers" ; Winston 
Churchill makes his countrymen live, but they are 
little like the exquisite cameo figures of Hawthorne. 



1890] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 505 

A national poet does not exist at the present moment. 
The most encouraging field of American literature, 
modestly stated, is history, in which there has been 
a great popular interest; and a group of writers, 
especially Rhodes, McMaster, and Lea, have shown 
the intellectual vigor of old times. 

As for journalism, the ante-bellum type of an editor 
expressing himself through a newspaper has given 
place to that of a newspaper supporting a proprietor. 
The world is literally harrowed for news, and the 
Sunday paper is a magazine, an encyclopaedia, a 
library of wit, wisdom, sport, and twaddle. Yet the 
newspapers were never more influential ; the Wash- 
ington correspondents of the great dailies are more 
powerful than Congress, for they make and unmake 
congressmen. The difficulty is that the newspapers 
no longer look upon themselves as the nation's her- 
alds, who by their trumpet-blasts announce the com- 
ing of the sovereign people ; the great newspaper is 
no longer a voice — it is a property. To some degree 
the old functions of criticism and public instruction 
have been taken over by the magazines; and no 
reading-matter is more attractive and vivacious than 
the illustrated monthlies — Harper's, the Century, 
Scrihner^s, and the rest. Nevertheless, the ten-cent 
magazine has assumed to be the great moral influence 
of the country, and has undermined the lurid "story- 
papers" of a previous epoch; but, like the dailies, 
they all live on advertising, and the ten-cent maga- 
zine may go down to a nickel weekly, and that to a 



5o6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [i860 

one-cent yellow journal, and that to a take-it-for- 
nothmg-if-you-will-buy-our-soap. If people have not 
a flow of new literature, they are still free to drink 
from the old fountains ; and the colleges and upper 
schools nourish literature by analyzing it. 

Education has made more improvement since 
i860 than in the two centuries previous, and all the 
states now have public free schools for all classes and 
races, and many of them also maintain public uni- 
versities. The rural systems are still very deficient, 
especially in the sparsely settled southern states; 
and the district schools are what they always have 
been, places where only bright and willing children 
really get an education. The city systems have 
availed themselves of highly trained teachers, ra- 
tional school - houses, and expert superintendents, 
backed up by an intelligent public interest. For 
secondary education the country is planted with 
more than six thousand free high-schools, besides the 
boarding-schools, church schools, and endowed acad- 
emies for the children of the respectable rich. The 
great public-school systems have the faults of army 
life — formalism, marking time, red-tape, and move- 
ment by platoons instead of by individuals ; but no 
part of the American system is more subject to con- 
verging criticism ; if the schools accept a tithe of the 
excellent advice that they receive, all will go well.* 

' For the most incisive and appreciative criticism of American 
common schools, see Eliot, Contributions to Am. Civilization, ii6, 
117, 201-232; and especially Eliot, Educational Reform, passim. 



I goo] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 507 

As for higher education, Bryce says, with truth: 
"While the German universities have been popular 
but not free, while the English universities have been 
free but not popular, the American universities have 
been both free and popular." ^ The system of state 
universities has since the Civil War taken a place side 
by side with the company of endowed institutions. 
Congress has aided by an enormous gift of public land 
in 1862 for agricultural colleges and by annual money 
subsidies. The northwestern states have had the 
civic pride to build up universities with thousands 
of students and annual millions of public expense. 
One southern state, Texas, and the far western states 
have followed this example ; but in the older northern 
and southern states the endowed colleges, some of 
which have thirty millions of wealth, perform the 
same service. Allied with this double system is a 
complex of denominational colleges, mostly small 
and struggling. Thus there is as yet no unity of 
college system; but about twenty-five powerful in- 
stitutions are forging to the front and are likely to 
educate nine-tenths of all the graduate and profes- 
sional students ; and the smaller institutions are tak- 
ing a position as offering a different kind of educa- 
tion, not inferior in quality, but more limited in scope. 
Perhaps the most striking and American part of 
the whole educational uplift is the opportunities for 
women, who in the East have half a dozen separate 
colleges of a high type and in the West are admitted 

' Bryce, Am. Commonwealth (ed. of 1901), II., 692. 



5o8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1900 

on equal terms to the public universities and to 
most of the endowed colleges. 

A part of the nation's education is through its 
places of public enlightenment. There are museums 
of American antiquities, such as the Field-Columbian, 
in Chicago, and the National, in Washington. The 
rich state of Connecticut participates by a glass 
case in the state Capitol containing a charm of two 
thousand different buttons. Above all there are the 
libraries, public and private, university and city, 
housed in such palaces as the Boston Public, the 
New York Public, and the superb Library of Con- 
gress. If the American people still ejaculate, " I 
want to know!" the opportunities of knowing are 
unstinted. 

Disturbed and confused as has been the intellectual 
history of the country, the present intellectual ideals 
are not difficult to trace. ^ First of all is the sense of 
intellectual kinship with other countries and par- 
ticularly with England. English writers find much 
of their public on this side of the water, a compli- 
ment which is little reciprocated. Germany, through 
the great number of American professional men, 
teachers, physicians, musicians, and artists trained 
in their country, and through her literature, is an- 
other source of American intellectuality. France is 
the mother of American art. Those who think at all 

' Cf. the discussion in Bryce, Am. Commonwealth (ed. of iqoi), 
IL, 761-766. 



1907] INTELLECTUAL LIFE 509 

look upon themselves as members of a great interna- 
tional brotherhood of intellectual people. 

Democracy cannot be said either to feed or to 
starve the mind, but it does provide food for it. 
There was a time when Americans were fond of 
roundabout and turgid expressions, of spread-eagle 
speeches; but Parkman and Lowell and Emerson 
and Lincoln, all masters of English style, sprang out 
of democracy. Democracy encourages and enjoys 
the humor which everybody notices as characteristic 
of the American ; and is there a more typical Ameri- 
can in the world than Mark Twain, to whom all the 
world owes gratitude for his writings? The orator 
has lost his favor ; even the hero of a thousand after- 
dinners finds no friends in his downfall. Democracy 
favors and trains men who can convince by reason 
and illustrate by wit and fancy; but American de- 
mocracy is not carried away by rhetoric and does 
have intellectual ideals which it applies to its great 
men.^ 

The chief obstacle to intellectual ideals is the rival- 
ry of other things. If a man loves power, if he is 
proud of bringing things to pass which his neighbors 
observe, money-making is the distinguished career. 
If he enjoys having an influence over other minds, 

* Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Spencer ed.), L, 61- 
82, passim; Bryce, Am.. Commonwealth (ed. of 1901), II., 799- 
807; Godkin, Problems, 45-61; Muirhead, America, 128-142, 
166, 187, 279; Eliot, Contributions to Am. Civilization, 29, 83, 
199; Crooker, Problems, 28-31; Wells, Future in America, chap. 
xiv. 



5IO SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES [1900 

politics is tlie direct road to that goal. If he likes 
to be interested and pleased, it is easier to go to the 
theatre than to go to college; and easier in college 
to be a ballet-dancer in a fraternity play than to win 
a prize for an essay. Reading for amusement runs 
from the novel to the short story ; and people like to 
be amused just as their neighbors are, so that they 
buy the "best-selling book of the year." The path 
of literature is as thorny as the path of business, and 
is less likely to lead to that distinction in other peo- 
ple's eyes which is so much valued by mankind. 

When all this has been said, it does not militate 
against the hard fact that intellectual men are sought 
by the nation in every field, though Americans real- 
ize that intellectual training does not always or nec- 
essarily come from academic surroundings. What 
the American wants is to see the work of the world 
done, and those who have the largest grasp, the 
greatest power of understanding their fellow -men, 
whether at the head of a corporation, a college, or 
a government, are the men who fulfil the American 
ideal of greatness. 



INDEX 



Act of Uniformity, it 8. 

Adams, Abigail, 499. 

Adams, Charles Francis, con- 
sideration enjoyed by, 391. 

Adams, John, on independence, 
113; letters of, 148. 

Adams, John Quincy, at Har- 
vard, 204; his advancement, 
185. 

Adams, Samuel, and the Stamp 
Act, 133; and "committees 
of correspondence," 135. 

Agassiz, Louis, 405. 

Agriculture, in Vermont, 194; 
surplus in the West, 277. 

Albany, in 1689, 39; Dutch 
Calvanists in, 50; popula- 
tion (1763), 115. 

Algiers, war on the city of, 183, 
189. 

American, Revolution, causes of, 
98-137; Fur Company, 292; 
Bible Society, 324; social 
characteristics, 316, 328; wins 
Queen's Cup, 358; mode of 
life, 479-495- 

Amusements, change in after 
the war, 489. 

Anglican Church, at Elizabeth, 
47; civilizing influence of, 50. 

Annapolis, King William's 
school at, 60. 

Anthony, Miss Susan B., 352. 

Anti-Catholic mob, 319. 

Antimasonry in New England, 
202. 

Apaches, on war-path, 467. 



Aristocracy, Virginia's, 238- 
240. 

Army, Canadian military con- 
ditions, 94-97. 

Articles of Confederation, signed 
by Maryland, 151 ; provisions 
of the, 152-155- 

Asbury, Bishop Francis, 170. 

Assemblies, the Colonial, 126. 

Astor, John Jacob, 296, 317. 

Atkinson, General, expedition 
under, 306. 

Backwoodsman, type of, 266- 

268. 
Ballads after and during the 

war, 402. 
Baltimore, ministers in 1677, 

46; population (1763), 115; 

growth of, 165. 
Baptists and Quakers, predom- 
inated in New England, 49; 

growth of Baptist Church in 

New England, 196, 202. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 356. 
Belcher, Jonathan, becomes 

Governor of New Jersey, 66. 
Bennett, James Gordon, 503. 
Bennett, Richard, 20. 
Berkeley, George, mission of, 57; 

and Yale College, 58. 
Berkley, Sir WiUiam, denounces 

the murder of King Charles 

I., 22; reply of, 51. 
Bigelow Papers, The, 406. 
"Biglow, Hosea," 401. 
Bishop, power of Canadian, 84. 



512 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Blair, Commissary, first presi- 
dent of William and Mary- 
College, 59. 

Bond servants, life in the colo- 
nies, 32, 33, 34. 

Book 0} Mormon, 327. 

Books of Common Prayer, 
brought over by Mason, 48. 

Boston, attack on ship in har- 
bor of, i; schools in, 6; mint 
established at, 8; in i65o, 38; 
newspapers in, 69; popula- 
tion (1763), 115; British sol- 
diers at, 134; "massacre," 
135; "tea party," 136; in- 
tercolonial congress at, 137, 
138; population (1790), 165; 
mob tries to free Burns, 367. 

Bradford, printing-press intro- 
duced by, 51. 

Bray, Rev. Thomas, libraries 
collected by, 67. 

Brent, Giles, wealth of, 43. 

Bryant, William CuUen, begins 
his literary career, 188; work 
of, 503. 

Buffalo becomes a city, 213. 

Burgesses, House of, 27. 

Burke, William, pamphlet of, 102, 
103. 

Burnaby in Boston, 74. 

Burnet, Governor, enviable repu- 
tation of, 56. 

Burns, Anthony, attempt to free, 

367- 
Byrd, William, libraries of, 67. 

Calhoun, as an effective leader, 

\ 245; his Disquisition on Gov- 
ernment, 384. 

Calvinistic faith, benumbing in- 
fluence of, 4; in Albany, 50; 
and Yale College, 63. 

Cambridge, college built at, 7. 

Canada; influence of climate, 79 ; 
lack of a naval base, 80; fish- 
eries of, 80; attempts to pro- 
mote population of, 82; In- 
tendants, 84, 87; government, 



83-85 ; economic conditions, 
81, 86, 87, 93; feudalism, 86, 
87; nobility, 85-89; official 
corruption, 89-91; power and 
character of clergy, 91-93; 
Jesuits in, 92; Catholic clergy 
in, 92 ; paternalism and naval 
power, 93; lack of manufac- 
tures, 93; Catholic monopoly 
in, 93; economic conditions, 
93; Indian allies, 49. 

Catholic, Roman, in Maryland, 
46; clergy in Canada, 92; 
monopoly in Canada, 93; con- 
version of Indians, 93; religious 
freedom granted to Catholics 
of Quebec, 96. 

Census, of Virginia, 1 1 ; first 
taken, 161. 

Centennial Exhibition, the, 445- 

457- 

Central authority withheld from 
Congress, 154. 

Century Magazine, 505. 

Channing and the Unitarian re- 
volt, 203. 

Charities, American, 495. 

Charlestown, first to appoint 
selectmen, 6; in 1682, 42; 
school established at, 60; plays 
in, 174; population (1763),. 115; 
population (1790), 164; as a 
racing center, 168. 

Chicago, a fur-trading station, 

' 275. 

Child, Dr. Robert, arrested, pe- 
tition found in his baggage sug- 

> gesting Presbyterianism be es- 
tablished in New England, 2. 

Christian anti-slavery conven- 
tion, 354. 

Church of England the estab- 
lished Church of South Caro- 
lina and Virginia, 45; of the 
North, 50. 

Churchill, Winston, 504. 

Cilley, Jonathan, duel with 
Graves, 318. 

Cincinnati, in 1790, 171; popu- 



INDEX 



513 



lation (1835), 276; the rise of, 
276; population (1835), 276. 

Claiborne, William, made gen- 
eral of an expedition against 
the Pamunky Indians, 19, 22. 

Claims, French, in America, 82; 
of Russia, 307. 

Clarendon, policy of, 48. 

Clark and Lewis, expedition of, 

295- 

Clay, Henry, speech of, 179. 
Clergy, power and character of, 

in Canada, 91-93. 
Cleveland, President, keeps faith 

with Indian tribes, 468. 
Climate, influence of, in Canada, 

79- 

Clinton, De Witt, and the Erie 

Canal, 211, 212. 
Co-education tried at Oberlin, 

396. 
Coercion of rebellious colonies 

favored by the king, 130. 
Colleges, small, in New England, 

205; in each state made pos- 
sible, 397; in the South during 

the war, 417. 
Colman, Benjamin, influence of, 

70. 
Colonies drawn together by 

French war, 98-116; as a 

source of wealth to the mother 

country, 121; life in the, 484, 

487. 
Colonists, number of, in 1689, 29. 
Colonization, French motives in, 

80; of the West, 246-262. 
Columbia College founded, 66. 
Commerce, illicit Canadian, 90, 

91; in seacoast towns, 163. 
Commissariat of Confederate 

army, 409. 
" Committees of correspondence," 

135- 
Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, 

144. 
Communication, mode of, for the 

settlements by the sea, 5. 
Conciliation, need of, 112. 



Concord, raid, 138. 

Confederate army, commissariat 
defective, 409. 

Confederation, the New Eng- 
land, 106. 

Confidence, supreme trait of an 
American of 1789, 160. 

Confiscation of property of loy- 
alists, 142, 143. 

Congregationalism, established, 
49; in Long Island, 50; in the 
South, 50; and the state, 196. 

Congress, authority given it by 
Articles of Confederation, 151- 
153; desires power to tax, 147. 

Connecticut, copies Massachu- 
setts' educational law, 7; Con- 
gregationalists in, 49; "the 
land of steady habits," 195. 

Conscience, the New England, 
201. 

Cotton, in the South, 225, 235; 
fall in the price of, 242. 

Cotton-gin, invented 1793, 224. 

Cotton, John, death of, 4. 

Council, Canadian, 84. 

County - courts in Virginia, 239. 

Coureurs de bois, 88. 

Coxe, Daniel, anticipates Frank- 
lin's plan, 108. 

Crimes, fifteen, punishable ^with 
death, 9. 

Criminals transported as late as 
1774, 116. 

Criminal law, administration of, 
320. 

Crudities of American life, 315, 
316. 

Curtis, Captain Edmund, 23. 

Cutler, Timothy, first president 
of Yale College, 62; deposed, 
63- 

Davis, Jefferson, arduous la- 
bors of, 409. 

Dawes bill, the, 465. 

De Bow defines "Yankees," 385. 

Decatur, Captain, in the harbor 
of Algiers, 184. 



514 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Declaration of rights adoj)tccl, 

138. 
Declaration of Independence did 

not set forth real causes of the 

Revolution, 117. 
Democracy, impetus of, 159; and 

the negro, 346; Jacksonian, 

347- 

Democratic - Republican ■ party, 
headquarters of, in Virginia, 
27. 

Dennis, Captain Robert, placed 
in command of a squadron to be 
prepared against Virginia, 22. 

Depression in the South, 238-244. 

de Tocqueville, Alexis, as a critic, 

315- 
Dickinson, John, 132. 
Dickinson, Jonathan, trained at 

Yale, 63. 
Diocese of Virginia, 48. 
"Diomed," famous stud, 168. 
Dissenters in Maryland, 46. 
Distribution of colonists in 1869, 

29,30,31- 
Dix, Dorothea, work of, 355. 
Dongan, Governor, 39. 
Dorchester, the first place to 

adopt town government, 6. 
Douglas, his ^account of the 

colonies, 71. 
Do wing. Sir Gcorge,^career of, 53. 
Dred Scott decision, 363. 
Dress, in Boston, New York, etc., 

74- 
Dudley, Governor, "a gentleman 

and a scholar," 56. 
Duello, not yet disappeared, 318. 
Duels in the South, 372, 373. 
Dulany, Daniel, the lawyer, 72. 
Dummer, Jeremiah, as agent of 

Massachusetts, loi. 
Durand, William, directed to 

leave Virginia, 20. 
Dwight, Timothy, 195, 199, 200. 

Eaton, Thomas, establishes a 

free school, 28. 
Economic conditions, Canadian, 



81, 86, 87, 93. Sec Commerce, 

fur-trade. 
Economic interests of the colo- 
nies differed from those of 

England, 120. 
Education, in middle colonies, 

66; improvement after i860, 

506; public, 508. 
Edwards, Jonathan, trained at 

Yale, 63 ; his power, 76, 77. 
Eggleston, George Cary, 408. 
Elections, scenes of petty war, 

319-. . 

Electricity applied to industrial 
arts, 477. 

Elizabeth, N. J., in 1689, 39; 
first Anglican church in, 47. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 504. 

Endicott, John, a fanatic, 4. 

Episcopacy tolerated in Massa- 
chusetts, 47. 

Episcopal Church in 1790, the, 
169. 

Erie Canal, and De Witt Clinton, 
211, 212; effect on New York 
City, 213, 214. 

Ether first used as an anesthetic, 

394- 
Everett, Edward, 205. 
Exports, increase of (1876), 457- 

459. 

Farms, vast stretch of, 161. 
Federalists, and Tennessee, 172; 

decline of, 195, 198. 
Fetterman, Lieutenant-Colonel, 

killed, 410. 
Feudalism, Canadian, 86, 87. 
Finances, national, readjustment 

after the war, 429. 
Financial depression in the South, 

238-244. 
Fire companies, rival, 319. 
Fisheries, Canadian, 80. 
Flatboatmen on Mississippi, 281, 

282. 
Floyds bill, 307. 
"Flying-machine" between New 

York and Philadelphia, no. 



INDEX 



515 



Foreign missions, 324. 

Forest, disappearance of, in New 
England, 163. 

Fox, George, journal of, 42. 

France, claims of, 82. 

Franchise in England, 126. 

Franklin, Benjamin, chief mover 
in founding college in Pennsyl- 
vania, 65; library of, 68; as a 
printer, 69; as a boy in Boston, 
72; contrasted to Edwards, 
77; writings, 78; reply to 
Burke, 103; agrees with Pitt, 
104; plan to make the colonies 
more useful to the crown, 106; 
drafts plan of union (1754), 
108, 109; debates, 131. 

Free-thinkers, the, 353. 

French and Indian War, colonial 
military conditions, 94-97, 98- 
116; fur-trade, 81, 82, 89, 91. 

French Huguenots on Staten 
Island, 50. 

Fry, provost marshal, vindica- 
tion of, 399. 

Fur-trade, French, 81, 82, 89, 91; 
St. Louis as a centre, 297; 
American, 297-301. 

Gage, General, in Boston, 138. 
Gambling, public, 492. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 353, 
365-366; retirement of, 402. 
Gaspee burned, 135. 
General court summoned, 138. 
"Gentle Shepherd," the, 121. 
Georgia, land claims of, 172. 
Gerard, Stephen, a millionaire, 

317- 

Gettysburg speech of Lincoln, 
402. 

Gibbons vs. Ogden, decision in 
case of, 285. 

Glass factory established at Sa- 
lem, 5. 

Gookin, Captain Samuel, resi- 
dence of, 12. 

Grain, demand for American, 164. 

Graves, duel with Cilley, 319. 



"Great Awakening," the, 75, 76. 

Greeley, Horace, 503. 

Grenville, and the colonies, 119, 
124; and the Stamp Act, 124. 

Grey, Captain, on the Columbia 
River, 295. 

Gridley, Jeremiah, as a mentor 
for lawyers, 72. 

Grievances of his Majesty's sub- 
jects, 112. 

Halifax, president of Board of 
Trade and Plantations, 112. 

Hamilton, financial policy of, 166; 
in Pennsylvania, 72. 

Hampton, Virginia, free school 
at, 28. 

Hancock, John, sloop of, seized, 

133- 

Harper's Magazine, 505. 

Harrison, William Henry, as a 
presidential candidate, 185. 

Harrison, land proclamation of, 
468. 

Harrison, Rev. Thomas, turns 
Puritan, 19. 

Hartford, in 1689, 39; conven- 
tion, 182. 

"Hartford Wits," the, 171. 

Harvard College, money to erect, 
left by John Harvard, 7; edu- 
cation at, 52, 53; and Thomas 
Hollis, 64; some graduates of, 
188; and the Unitarian move- 
ment, 203; liberalizing of, 205. 

Harvey, expedition sent by, 14. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 328; 
death of, 403. 

Helper's Impending Crisis, 371. 

Henry, Patrick, and the Stamp 
Act, 128. 

Hog-chivers on highway, 280. 

Hollis, Thomas, and Harvard, 64. 

Horse-racing, 168. 

Ilouse of Commons, methods of 
election of members, 126. 

Houses, types of, in 1689, 38. 

Hudson's Bay Company, monop- 
oly of, 296. 



5i6 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Huguenots, French, on Staten 

Island, 50. 
Hull, John, master of Boston 

mint, 8. 

Illiteracy in Plymouth and 
Rhode Island, 8. 

Imperial policy, suggested by 
British ministers, 120. 

Indenture system, 32. 

Independence, Declaration of, 
did not set forth real causes 
of the Revolution, 117. 

Independence long existed in 
spirit, 119. 

Indiana farm, cost of an, 266. 

Indiana, formed from portion of 
the Northwest Territory, 251. 

Indians, attack by, 17; inefficient 
as servants and laborers, 32; 
conversion by Catholic mis- 
sionaries, 95; as French allies, 
95; as a cause for anxiety, 100, 
loi; rebellion of, 123; lands 
ceded, 254; agriculture of, 
294; hostility of, 440; terri- 
tory, 464-469; at school, 466; 
their lands purchased by the 
government, 468. 

Intellectual life in America, 496- 
510. 

Intendant, Canadian, 84, 87. 

Intercolonial Congress at Bos- 
ton, 137, 138. 

"Intolerable acts" passed, 136. 

Irish, in New England, 193. 

Iron works established at Lynn, 

5- . 
Iroquois, uncertain policy, 94. 

Irving, Washington, publishes his 

History of New York by Died- 

rich Knickerbocker, 188. 

Jackson, Andrew, 185, 285. 

Jackson, Stonewall, life a per- 
petual prayer, 418. 

Jamestown, village of, 12, 13. 

Jay, John, made foreign secre- 
tary, 156. 



Jefferson, Thomas, and religion, 
169; financial embarrassments 
of, 238. 

Jenks, Joseph, manager of iron 
works at Lynn, 5. 

Jesuits in Canada, 92. 

Jockey Club, of Charleston, 168. 

Johnson, Dr., on taxation, 125. 

Johnson, President, little knowl- 
edge of finance, 429. 

Johnston, Governor, reproaches 
the assembly, 61. 

Jones, Rev. Hugh, professor at 
William and Mary College, 59. 

Journalism, influence of, 505. 

Kalm, Peter, views of, 102. 

Kansas crusade, the, 361 ; strug- 
gle, the, 377. 

Keith, George, apostacy of, 50. 

Kelly, Abby, 352. 

Kendall, Amos, as tutor, 286. 

Kennedy, Archibald, plan sug- 
gested by, 108. 

Kentucky, population of (1790), 
171. 

Killed, number of in War of 1812, 

175- 

King William s School at Annap- 
olis, 60. 

Kings College, founding of, 58. 

Know-Nothing riots, 361. 

Labadists, statement of, 46. 
Law, American private, separates 

itself from English, 160. 
Lawyers, hostility to, 59; lack 

of, 71. 
Laxity towards colonies, 118. 
Lecompton debate, 383. 
Legal tender — corn,wampum, and 

cattle made, 8. 
Lewis and Clark, expedition of, 

295- 
Liberator, The, and Garrison, 353. 
Liberty, seizure of the sloop, 133. 
Life, mode of in 1790, 167. 
Lincoln, Abraham, birth of, 257; 

Gettysburg speech, 402. 



INDEX 



517 



Lincoln, General Benjamin, made 
Secretary of War, 156. 

Lind, Jenny, visit of, 361. 

Literary movement, flood-tide 
of the, 349-350. 

Literature, opportunities for en- 
joyed by reason of the con- 
veniences of town life, 10. 

Livingston, Robert R., made 
foreign secretary, 156; plan of, 
108. 

Long Island, Congregationalists 
in, 50. 

Long, Major, expedition under, 

293- 
Louisville as export centre, 276. 
Lovelace, William, funeral of, 

43, 44- 

Lovelace, Governor Francis, 
uncle of William, 44. 

Lowell writes The Bigelow Papers, 
406; edits North American Re- 
view, 407. 

Loyalists, number of, 141. 

Lynch, Judge Charles, 321. 

Lynching, cases of, 321. 

Lynn, iron works established at, 
5- 

McCuLLOCH, Secretary, problems 

of, 430. 
McLoughlin, Dr. John, 296, 301. 
Mackenzie, Alexander, travels, 

295- 

Madison's administration, fate 
of, in the balance, 180, 181. 

Madison, Bishop, becomes presi- 
dent of William and Mary Col- 
lege, 170. 

Maine-law agitation, 361. 

Mann, Horace, death of, 395. 

Manufacturing, early encourage- 
ment of in New England, 5; 
lack of in Canada, 93. 

Marriage a civil contract in New 
England, 9. 

Marshall, Chief Justice, decision 
of, 282. 

Marshall, Thomas, speech of, 237. 



Maryland, surrender of, 24; in 
1689, 41; strength of church 
in, 46; lack of schools, 51; act 
for free schools passed, 60; 
articles of the Confederation 
signed by, 151. 

Mason, Books of Common Prayer 
brought by, 48. 

Massachusetts, sympathies with 
Parliament during the Civil 
War in England, i ; the town 
as a unit of taxation in, 
5, 6; recognized the support 
of education as a government 
function, 6; votes to build a 
college at Cambridge, 8; popu- 
lation ( 1 775) , 1 1 5 ; and the king, 
118; charter annulled, 137. 

"Massacre" at Boston, 135. 

Mather, Cotton, and Yale, 63, 64. 

Mathers, in New England, 70. 

Matthews, Captain Samuel, fort 
constructed by, 12. 

Maverick, Samuel, signs petition 
for the removal of civil dis- 
abilities, 2. 

Maximilian, and Mexico, 390. 

Menifie, George, residence of, 12. 

Merchant marine, of the north, 
lost, 412. 

Methodists, growth of church in 
New England, 196, 202. 

Michigan, University of, 396. 

Middle Region, the, 207-223. 

Migration, tide of to urban 
centres, 115. 

Miles, General, at Wounded 
Knee, 467. 

Military strength of Canada, 

93-97- 
Miller, his description of religious 

life in New York, 47. 
Millerism, 354. 

Ministers in Virginia (1671), 45. 
Mint established at Boston, 8. 
Mississippi, navigation of secured 

by treaty, 172; number of 

boats on, 281. ^ 

Mississippi territory, 172. 



5i8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Mississippi Valley, colonization 
of, 521, 252; produce of (1830), 
284. 

Molasses Act, the, 122. 

Money scarcity of in New Eng- 
land and Virginia, 8; power to 
raise withheld from Congress 
of the Confederation, 15. 

Monroe, financial ruin of, 238. 

Montesquieu, prophesy of, 113. 

Moon, Captain John, legacy for 
free school left by, 28. 

Morale of New England, 200. 

Mormonism, 202. 

Morris, Robert, postmaster-gen- 
eral, 155. 

Mortality, high rate of, 13, 14. 

Morton first uses ether, 394. 

"Mosaic Ministry, the," 131. 

Municipalities, growth of, 470. 

Murray, Alexander, his appoint- 
ment as bishop considered, 48, 
49. 

Nationality of settlers in the 
colonies in 1869, 30. 

National debt, the (1865), 430. 

National road, construction of, 
279. 

Naval base, lack of in Canada, 
80. 

Necotowance makes peace, 19. 

Negroes, number of in 1760, 115. 

Newcastle, and the colonies, 119. 

Newe, Thomas, on South Caro- 
lina, 34, 35, 36. 

New England, early trade con- 
ditions, 5; Confederation, 106; 
Puritan morals in, 168; vil- 
lages (1790), 169; provincialism 
in, 189; population (1820), 190; 
shipping, 191 ; woolen products, 
192; agriculture in, 193; 
Irish in, 193; morale of, 200; 
conscience of, 201 ; imperialism 
in, 202; growth of Baptist 
Church in, 202; anti-masonry 
in, 202; growth of Methodist 
Church in, 202 ; literary move- 



ment in, 204; farms abandoned, 

474- 

New Hampshire, toleration act, 
197. 

New Haven in 1689, 39. 

New Jersey, school taxes in, 65; 
college of founded, 66. 

Newspapers, few in 1766, no; 
altered conditions of, 360; 
editors, some leading, 360. 

New York, in 1689, 39; lack of 
schools in, 51; educational 
progress in, 65; population 
(1775). 115; frontier conditions 
in, 210; exports, 214. 

New York City, population in 
1763, 115; in 1790, 164; in 
1830, 214; effect of the Erie 
Canal on, 214; number of for- 
eign born in 1890-1900, 473. 

New York Herald, The, 503. 

New York Times, The, 503. 

New York Tribtme, The, 503. 

Nicholson, Francis, credit due to, 
56. 

Nobility of Canada, 85-89. 

Nonconformists, laws against, 17; 
in the southern colonies, 50. 

North American Review begins its 
career, 188; edited by Lowell 
and Charles Eliot Norton, 407. 

North Carolina, population of, in 

1775, 115- 
Northwest, industrial conditions 

of, 251. 
Northwest Territory divided, 

173- 
Norton, John, 4. 

Oberlin - Wellington rescue, 

367. 

Ohio, formed from a portion of 
the Northwest Territory, 173. 

Ohio River, towns on in 1790, 
171. 

Olmstead, Frederick L., work of, 
382. 

Opechancanough's attack on set- 
tlers, 18. 



INDEX 



519 



Oregon, question of, 306. 
Organization, the problem of, 

139-158- 

Otis, James, speech of against 
the issue of "writs of assist- 
ance," 123. 

Owen, Robert Dale, and free 
love, 326. 

Pacific Coast dispute, the, 
291. 

Pamphlets relating to war, abun- 
dance of, 420. 

Panic, of 1893, 477. 

Paper money hardly worth one 
per cent., 415. 

Parliament, act of, freeing from 
duty all commodities carried 
between England and New 
England, i ; authority of rec- 
ognized throughout English 
America,,- 5. 

Peculation in the army, 398. 

Penal legislation of New Eng- 
land, 9. 

Pennsylvania, population in 1775, 
115; system of turnpikes in, 
216; grows rich, 218; petro- 
leum in, 435. 

Personal ' liberty laws, 368. 

Perth -Amboy in 1689, 39. 

Peter, Rev. Hugh, invited to 
attend Westminster assembly 
of divines, i. 

Petroleum in Pennsylvania, 435. 

Philadelphia in 1689, 40; Quak- 
ers in, 50; population in 1763, 
115; in 1790, 164; loss of 
power, 215. 

Phillips and Garrison, 365-366. 

Pierce, Captain William, 13. 

Pig-iron, production of, 476, 477. 

"Pine-Tree vShillings " issued, 8. 

Pinckney, Charles, leading law- 
yer, 72. 

Pioneer, mode of life, 263-268. 

Pitt and Franklin, 104. 

Pittsburg, forges at, 215; popu- 
lation in 1830, 275. 



Plan of Union, the famous, 108- 
109. 

Plantation life, 329-345. 

Planters of the South, politics 
of, 162. 

Plays in Charleston, 74. 

Plymouth, illiteracy in, 8; in 
1689, 39. 

Pontiac Indian rebellion en- 
dangers the West, 123. 

Pork-packing industry in Ohio, 
280, 281. 

Postmaster-general, office of, 155. 

Pre-emption laws, 263. 

Presbyterianism, petition found 
suggesting it be established in 
New England, 2; agitation in 
England in favor of, 3. 

Prince, Thomas, collection of, 67 ; 
pastor of South Church, Bos- 
ton, 70. 

Protective tariff charged with 
destroying the prosperity of 
the South, 240. 

Providence, the Puritan settle- 
ment, 41; population in 1763, 

115- 

Provincialism in New England, 

189. 
Puritan morals in New England, 



Quakers, hanging of, 4; pre- 
dominated in New England, 
49; in Philadelphia, 50. 

Quebec, the situation of, 80; 
Wolfe at, 98; Cathohcs of 
granted religious freedom, 137. 

"Queen City of the West," Cin- 
cinnati, 276; population of 
in 1830, 98. 

Questions at issue, two great, 
125. 

Racing in the South, 168. 

Radicalism in religion, 352, 353. 

Railroads, building of, 392; dur- 
ing the war, 412; in the Norths 
west, 437, 439. 



520 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 205. 

Raymond, Henry J., 503. 

Read, John, in Massachusetts, 72. 

Readjustment of national fi- 
nances, 429. 

Redemption system, 32. 

Red-tape in Union Army, 410. 

Religion, in 1790, 169; stimu- 
lated by the war, 395, 419. 

Representation, taxation with- 
out, 124. 

Republicans, many Federalist 
principles absorbed by, 180. 

Restraint, hatred of by colonies, 
118. 

Restriction, system of, 122, 

Revivalists, in 1857, 323. 

Revolution, American, causes of, 
98-137; a civil war, 139. 

Rhode Island, illiteracy in, 8. 

Richmond, Va., in 1790, 164. 

Road, The National, construc- 
tion of, 279. 

Robinson, Sir Thomas, depart- 
mental secretary, 112. 

Rochester becomes a city, 213. 

Rocky Mountain Fur Company, 
297. 

Roman Catholics in Maryland, 
46. 

Rowley, puUing-mill set up at, 5. 

Russia, claims of, 307; always 
friendly to the United States, 
330. 

Rutland, Vermont, convention at, 
352. 

Salem, glass factory established 
at, 5. 

Sandys, George, appointed agent 
of the colony of Virginia, 15. 

Savannah as a winter resort, 317. 

Scott, Winfield, the logical Whig 
candidate in 1852, 185. 

Scribner's Magazine, 505. 

Secretary for foreign affairs, office 
created in 1781, 155. 

Secretary of Marine, office creat- 
ed, 155. 



Selectmen, system of, 6. 

Servants for sale at beginning 
of the Revolution, 115. 

Shakers, The, 326. 

Sheffield Scientific School at 
Yale, 502. 

Ship friendly to the king at- 
tacked in Boston harbor by 
parliamentary vessel, i. 

Ship-building an early industry 
of New England, 5. 

Shirley, Governor, responsible for 
bringing Pitt into office, iii, 
112; sinister suggestion of, 

113. 

Shute, Governor, and Yale, 64. 

Sioux, outbreak of, 440. 

Slavery, spreads with the cultiva- 
tion of cotton, 231, 233; in 
Virginia, 234; in South Caro- 
lina, 234; in Georgia, 234; 
price of field hands in Georgia, 
241; few defenders in the 
North, 364; agitation against, 
362-367. 

Slaves, in New England, 31; 
illicit importation of, 272; 
dealers, 272; household, 331; 
letters written by escaped, 332; 
and music, 332; as mechanics, 
333; as field servants, 333; 
churches for, 336; hours of 
work, 336; rations, 337; cabins 
of, 339; family life among, 
339; marriages between, 340; 
religious services for, 343; 
death rate of, 345; behavior 
of during war, 423-426. 

Slave-ships, sailed from New 
York, 380. 

Smibert, his portraits, 73. 

Smith, Jedediah, in fur-trade, 
300; shot b}'^ Indian, 301. 

Smith, Joseph, and the Book of 
Mormon, 327. 

Smith, William, on New York 
schools, 65. 

Smuggled goods, difficulty of 
seizing, 122, 123. 



INDEX 



521 



Social characteristics, American, 

316-328. 
Society for the Propagation of 

the Gospel, 167. 
Society, state of, 159-173. 
Soldiers, British, stationed at 

Boston, 134. 
South Carolina, chills and fevers 

in, 34; conditions in 1689, 36; 

leader of the Cotton Kingdom, 

229; number of slaves in i860, 

370. 
Spain, treaty with in 1795, 172. 
Spiritualism in New England, 202. 
Squatter on public lands, 263. 
Stage-coach, description of, 166, 

167. 
Stamp-Act Congress in New 

York, 129. 
Stamp Act, the, 121; resistance 

to, 124, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 

132, 133. 134. 136, 137- 
Staten Island, French Huguenots 

on, 50. 
States, population in 1790, 165. 
States Rights in Federal politics, 

347- 
Steamboats on the Mississippi, 

282. 
Stegge, Thomas, 22. 
St. Louis as a fur-trade centre, 

297. 
Stone, Dr. Lucy, 352. 
Street-cars displace omnibuses, 

359- 

vSunday paper, the, 505. 

Superintendent of finance, office 
created, 155. 

Syms, Benjamin, leaves legacy 
for the promotion of education, 
28. 

"Synod" meets at Cambridge in 
1646 to discuss church govern- 
ment and discipline, 3. 

Taxation, struggle caused by in 
1 760, III; without representa- 
tion, 124. 

Tea, East India Company li- 



censed to sell in America, 136; 
thrown overboard at Boston, 
136; tax on, 136. 

Telephone, the, convenience of, 
478; number of telephones in 
1900, 478. 

Tennessee, population of in 1790, 
171; seeks admission into the 
Union, 172. 

Territory, occupied by colonists 
in 1689, 30; the Northwest, 
172; the Mississippi, 72. 

"Theological thaw," the, 186. 

Thomas, Gabriel, description of 
Burlington, 40; report of, 51. 

Timber supplies, opened in Wash- 
ington territory, 464. 

Tobacco, legislation regarding, 
14; declines in price in Vir- 
ginia, 14. 

Toleration act in New Hamp- 
shire, 197. 

Town-meeting, the business of 
a, 6. 

Towns, as the unit of taxation 
and representation, 5, 6; ab- 
sence of in Virginia, 26. 

Townshend, and the colonies, 
131, 132; repealed, 133. 

Traders, Spanish, in California, 
296; British in the Northwest, 
296. 

Trading-posts, 292. 

Traditions, absence of made pos- 
sible self-government, 118. 

Transcendentalists, the, 204. 

Transportation in 1790, 166, 
167. 

Travel in 1766, no. 

Treason, persons charged with,' to 
be brought to England for 
trial, 133. 

Treaty with Spain, 1795, 172. 

Triumvirate of poets, the, 504. 

Troops, quartered on colonists, 
III. 

Trott, Nicholas, first lawyer in 
South Carolina, 71. 

Turgot, the prediction of, 114. 



522 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FORCES 



Turnpikes in Pennsylvania, 216. 
Twain, Mark, 509. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 364. 

Underground Railroad, 367. 

Uniformity, act of, 118. 

Union Pacific Railroad, the, 438, 
439- 

Unitarian movement, the, 187; 
and Harvard, 203; in 1790, 
169; revolt, 203. 

United States Bank in Phila- 
delphia, 164. 

Urban centres, tide of migration 
to in 1775,115. 

Ursuline Convent burned, 319. 

Van Buren, the finished product 
of New York politics, 222. 

Vassal, William, and friends fail 
to receive aid from the Pres- 
byterian party in Parliament, 2. 

Vergennes, French ambassador, 
114. 

Vermont, admitted into the 
Union, 172; agriculture in, 
194; primitive conditions in, 
194. 

View, widely different points of, 
of Enghshmen and Americans, 
126. 

Virginia, scarcity of money in, 8; 
increase in wealth and popula- 
tion, 11; trade of, ii, 12; sub- 
mission of, 24 ; as headquarters 
of the Democratic-Republican 
party, 27; the diocese of, 48; 
population in 1775, 115; as 
leader of the agricultural states, 
166; the aristocracy of, 238- 
240. 

Voting-power of the West, 4, 250. 

Waldorf-Astoria, the, 489. 
Walker, William, popularity of, 

378. 
Walpole, and the colonies, 119. 
Wampum, used as a substitute 

for money, 8. 



Wanderer ,^ the yacht," 380. 
War, French and Indian, colonial 

military conditions, 94-97. 
War of 18 12, cost of, 174-177; 

number of killed, 175; high 

prices after, 176. 
"Ward, Artemus," humor of, 

400. 
Washington, George, entrance 

upon command of Continental 

army, 99; letter to Congress, 

140. 
Watertown, town-meetings held 

at, 6. 
Wealth, colonies as a source of, 

121. 
Webster, Daniel, 204. 
Wesley, followers of, 170. 
West, the far, 290-312. 
Western migration, routes of, 

258, 283. 
Western States, population of, 

249. 
Westminster assembly of divines 

in 1642, I. 
West Point Military Academy, 

502. 
Wherry boats across the Dela- 
ware, 40. 
Whig party, collapse of, 348. 
Whitfield, George, eloquence of, 

75- 

Whitney invents cotton-gin, 224. 

Whittington, Captain William, 
leaves legacy for free school, 28. 

William and Mary College,'found- 
ing of, 58, 59; Bishop Madison 
becomes president of, 170. 

William Penn Charter School, 65. 

Williamsburg, grammar - school 
at, 60. 

Williams College and foreign mis- 
sions, 324. 

Winthrop, John, death of, 4. 

Winthrop turns 'guns of battery 
on a Parliamentary captain, 2. 

Wise, Jennings, duels of, 372, 373. 

Witches and Quakers, hanging 
of, 4. 



. I 

I 



INDEX 



523 



Wolfe, victory at Quebec, effect 

of, 98. 
Woman's rights movement, 325, 

351, 352. 

Women of the South during 
war, 421, 422. 

Woollen products of New Eng- 
land, 192. 

Woolley, chaplain of New York, 

39. -M- 

Wounded Knee, 467. 

"Writs of assistance," legality of, 
123; "legalized," 302. 

Wyatt, Sir Francis, arrives in 
colony and_calls Harvey to ac- 
count, 15. 



Yachting, 358. 

Yale College, and Nicholson, 56; 
and Berkeley, 58 ; incorporated, 
61; seat of changed, 62; and 
Calvinism, 63; and Mather, 
63, 64; and Governor Shute, 
64; Sheffield Scientific School, 
502. 

Yale, Elihu, benefactor of Yale 
College, 62. 

"Yankees" defended by De 
Bow, 385. 

Yeo, John, report of in 1676, 46. 

York, Duke of, chaplain ap- 
pointed by, 47. 

Young, Captain Thomas, 13. 



THE END 



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